Never a Memory
by crystal-chan
Summary: Maybe they forgave him, but Cloud still couldn't forgive himself. He'd saved the world, but in the end... had it been worth it? He was starting to think that it wasn't. Sephiroth/Cloud. Timetravel. Warnings: Shounen-ai, Suicide, Language, War
1. Forgiveness Through Forgetting

Oh dear. I've caught the time-travel bug.

So… yeah. Sorry for those of you who were hoping for something original. I officially fail at life. What can I say? I love time-travel fics. Can't get enough of them, but something about them is always off, or there's always something I would have done differently. So I wanted to write my own. :)

Plus, this is kind of my way of solving the writer's block I've got on my Tsubasa fic. I've been writing like crazy lately, but for some reason Fai is giving me trouble… looks like it's gonna be another long wait on the update.

Oh, yeah, anyway, this fic will be highly depressing. (More so than Play the Fool. Terrifying thought, no?) And also Sephiroth/Cloud. Probably. You know Cloud. "There is nothing in this life that I don't treasure." To a certain extent he kinda loves everyone. Ack! Ranting again. I haven't gotten much sleep lately. Sorry.

Warnings: Shounen-ai, Suicide, war, language, and most likely infrequent updates (the horror!)

Aaaaaand I don't own FFVII or the characters therein. Wish I did though.

As an aside, I just found out about Dissidia. (I know… I'm out of the loop…) Oh. My. God. Sephiroth looks AWESOME in the trailor!

On that note, enjoy.

* * *

"You're leaving again, aren't you." Tifa's voice was full of tears, and its raw emotion made him wince. He wished he had kept to the original plan and left in the morning. Maybe then she wouldn't have been awake to see him go. But he was just so tired of this constant hiding. He needed to go somewhere where he could grieve. Because even after all was said and done, even after he'd had to kill Sephiroth _again..._. He couldn't find forgiveness. Maybe he knew that Aerith and Zack didn't hate him, but that didn't mean he could forgive _himself._ For a while, he had thought just knowing they didn't hate him would be enough, but...

"Where will you go?" He closed his eyes against Tifa's question, steeling himself against her will. He had to leave. The need to find his atonement, to make up for everything he'd done was overpowering. He knew he would go mad if he didn't feel like he was doing something to wash the blood from his hands. Tifa wouldn't understand that. She would think he was just overstressed, and try to take care of him. She cared too much, and knowing he couldn't return it, her love was absolutely stifling. He couldn't put up the front she needed, couldn't give her the love she deserved.

He'd already given that to someone else.

He chose not to answer her, and continued walking. Saying something now would only give her hope, and that was something Cloud didn't want to do. He'd already hurt her so much. He didn't want her to be crushed when she finally figured out he wasn't coming back. "Be safe, Cloud." He didn't turn to look, but he saw her crumple all the same. He knew exactly the way the tears were streaming down her cheeks, hands wringing her shirt as she tried to hold back the sobs. He wanted so badly to go back and soothe the pain away, but he knew he couldn't. The others would look after her now. Barret had returned from his oil digging expedition, and could take care of Marlene and Denzel for him. Yuffie and Cid were never too far from reach. She wouldn't be left alone. Cloud had made sure of that at least.

For all that it hurt her to watch the man she loved leave another time, there was never a doubt in her mind that she would find some way to see him again. He was a constant in her life, even if they went a few years without seeing each other, he _always_ came back. And she had to have faith in that, because if she didn't, if she just gave up on him... Well, that's what everyone else was always doing, wasn't it? But not Tifa. Never her. She couldn't give up on Cloud because she was the only one who truly・

Whatever she was thinking left her when she walked to the back door of the bar and saw that Fenrir was still there, along with a note. With shaking hands, she tore the paper envelope. She had to lean on Cloud's motorcycle, one of his only pleasures in this world, to keep herself from falling. In all the times he'd gone before, he'd never bothered to leave a note, because he always came back. To see one now, left behind with his bike, all his money, and a large amount of his materia, forced Tifa to realize the truth. She'd been left behind too, and this time, no matter how hard she ran, she was never going to catch up.

* * *

Cloud didn't know how long he'd been wandering. Time meant nothing in this hellish world of fragmented memories and regrets. He didn't know when the last time he'd eaten was, or the last time he'd seen another human being in this empty wasteland. He didn't remember how this wasting away was going to help the world in any way, but then, what use did living have any more? He wanted to atone, so very badly. More than anything, he wanted to wash the blood of Sephiroth and Zack and Aerith and so many others. But no matter how many times it rained, his sins were never washed away. Always they haunted him, drifting like phantoms behind his eyes.

"Maybe you were right after all." He murmured to the gunman that wasn't there. He hadn't seen Vincent in years. Last he'd heard, the man had settled down and was living a semi-normal life with Shelke and Yuffie. Cloud found it ironic that the man who had never tried for forgiveness had finally found it. Maybe that was the key. Maybe by giving up he could somehow find salvation.

But wasn't that what he was doing? Giving up? As he lay in the hot desert sand and stared blearily up at the sun he thought that he might be. He heard a sand-worm shifting somewhere beneath him and couldn't bring himself to care. It probably wouldn't bother him anyway. He smelled like blood and mako and death—not all that appetizing to a sand worm. Some kind of bird flew far off in the distance, a black silhouette against the too-bright sky. Most likely it was just a buzzard waiting for him to die, and Cloud had to laugh at the thought that it would be disappointed. Would there even be a body left if he died? He and Kadaj had been very much alike. Would the Jenova cells inside him simply overtake him until only mako was left? Cloud closed his eyes and decided he didn't care. If he was about to fade away into nothing more than a memory, it would be hypocritical to care.

No. Gods, he didn't want to think about memories and green eyes and silver hair right now. In fact, he didn't really want to think at all. But trying not to think inevitably led to new thoughts and soon Cloud was back on the same mental track, to the path he'd walked so often he'd worn his mind thin. Was there anything he could have done? For any of them? He had to think that there was. There had to have been a way to save Aeris, to keep Zack from dying. There _had_ to have been. He was just too stupid to know what it was. And Sephiroth… If that wasn't a mess he didn't know what was. More than any other of the deaths weighing heavy on his conscience, the hero felt the loss of his nemesis. Sephiroth didn't have to _be _his nemesis. If he had only seen what the horrible books in the Shinra Mansion were doing to his General, if he had only taken the initiative to talk to the lonely, broken, tortured soul that Sephiroth truly was, he could have—

Cloud curled into a ball despite the pain it caused him, allowing the dry sobs to wrack his aching body. He _could_ have. He could have saved Sephiroth. And even if he hadn't, even though he didn't, was the world really worth it? He'd fought against his hero after Zack's death, had screwed things up and gotten Aeris killed and put his friends in danger and handed over the Black Materia. He'd been forced to kill Sephiroth, but he'd saved the planet in the end. Was it really worth it? Maybe he shouldn't have bothered to fight at all. Maybe that cursed day when Zack handed over his legacy, he should have told Tifa he wanted nothing more than to care for the bar. Or better yet—maybe he should have taken the sword that stood for honor and pride and hope, and slit his own throat. Whatever fate the planet had without him had to be a thousand times better than the history it had wound up living out.

Time passed strangely in that half-dream state. Cloud knew he was dying, and he had the presence of mind to wonder if he already had. Perhaps he was already dead, and his soul was simply drifting in the deepest reaches of hell. His stomach was spasming now with hunger, throat positively burning with thirst, but still the mako kept him alive. He began to think it wasn't possible to waste away, and if he wanted to die, he was going to have to put some actual effort into it.

He shook as he dragged himself across the shifting sand, hand outstretched for First Tsurugi. He was through with trying to atone. He was done with trying to help everyone. Best to let it all end now before he caused someone else to die—before the word started ending again. If he was dead they couldn't guilt him into trying again. Couldn't make him kill that person again. Cloud would break if he had to face that man even one more time. He wasn't sure he hadn't already broken.

It was impossible to lift the heavy sword with failing limbs, and Cloud couldn't help but laugh. It would be the perfect hell to simply lay here forever, too weak to kill himself, to pumped with mako to die. Maybe it was meant to be his atonement. Ah, well, if he was lucky, a prisoner might wander here from the saucer and be kind enough to kill him. It was doubtful, but Cloud had plenty of time. Still… He didn't think he could stand to keep going over and over the same things in his mind until fate decided to be kind. He fiddled with the hitch on Sidewinder, draping himself over the gigantic sword and fought to get the smaller blade free. The many edges of his beloved weapon nicked him as he fumbled awkwardly, but he didn't register those tiny pinpricks of pain. The extreme amounts of mako in his blood healed them quickly. If he was going to kill himself, it wasn't going to be by bleeding out. He would have to deliver a quick shock to his system; perhaps a sword through his heart.

Cloud had never had trouble dismantling Tsurugi before, but Sidewinder remained firmly ensconced in its niche for what felt like hours. He didn't mind the wait. Fighting with his weapon gave him something other than guilt to think about, forced him to focus on his hands and the grooves between swords and the release. It was calming in a way. So when he finally got the smaller sword free, he didn't remember why he even wanted it.

The blessed numbness didn't last long. Almost as soon as his hands were still, his thoughts were back to attack him, thrusting the guilt upon him a hundred fold. Weak as he was, he didn't think he'd be able to thrust the small sword into his own chest. With emaciated hands he dug a small hole for the hilt to stand in, packing the sand around it until it stood firmly, blade up, on its own. Now all he had to do was fall.

Well… he had to stand up first, he supposed. He couldn't manage to get all the way up into a standing position. His legs could no longer support his weight. But Sidewinder was short enough that he didn't need to pick himself up all the way. Kneeling should have been enough. His arms strained against the shifting ground as he slipped and pushed and tried for purchase. The sun was beginning to set again by the time he, quivering, found himself to be kneeling. He wasn't quite sure how he'd managed that, but he had, and that was all that mattered.

Cloud decided that falling was remarkably easy. It was probably the easiest thing he'd ever done. He closed his eyes, and let everything go—his life, his guilt, his love—everything. In that instant, he was finally, _finally_ free. Cloud was smiling as his beloved Gaia held his sword steady and true—smiling as Sidewinder pierced his barely beating heart.

_We can be forgotten together._ He said to the memory of an angel somewhere in the fragments of his mind. He swore he heard laughter like sunlight as he lost sight of life. To hear that laugh again… Cloud couldn't have wished for a better death than this.

* * *

Please Review! I need feedback (positive or negative) in order to improve. And maybe I'm a bit of an attention whore. Just a little.


	2. Of Planets and Monsters

Meh. Well, 'tis a bit short but it'll do I suppose. I dunno. This one's just for fun so I'm not to worried about it. :)

In other news, I've started reading Lightening on the Wave's _Saving Connor_ arc again... I've never actually gotten through the whole thing. It's so huge. I don't know how she managed to write all that. If you like HarryDraco you should read it. :) It's mahvelous.

Updates will either be more slow or more often now, I'm not sure which direction my current depression will decide to take... Oh well. I guess we'll see soon enough.

*01/22/09 Edit. Centra--Cetra update. See chapter seven for more details if you really care...

* * *

Aeris sobbed as she watched Cloud Strife's body cease breathing, despite the fact that she had no solid form here in the lifestream. Her very soul was crying to see it all end so horribly, and yet… There was some part of her that recognized how much Cloud had suffered, that understood why this was his only way out. She'd hoped the whole debacle with Geostigma had helped him to forgive himself but… Maybe, _maybe_ Cloud understood it had been Zack and Aeris's time to die. But there was still that one person—the one person Cloud valued most of all—and he'd certainly never gotten any closure from that death. In fact, Cloud had had to watch the man, or the shell of that man, die all over again. How many more times would Cloud have to kill his own heart to save the world? Aeris was almost glad that the blond had taken the easy way out. At least he was finally, _finally_ at peace. She only wished it were possible for him to meet Sephiroth on the other side.

_Confusion, urgency, death_. All the Cetra were suddenly screaming, and Aeris felt her existence cringe. _Power, strength, a weakening._ The last of the Ancients could garner only a very little of their non-verbal language, but even she knew they were swarming like this over Cloud's suicide. Aeris wished she could go to his soul now, comfort him in some way, but she didn't think she could. Ever since curing the Geostigma, it had been harder and harder to manipulate the lifestream. She was starting to think she had an exhaustible amount of power that allowed her to change things in the real world and among the dead. By curing the stigma, so soon after stopping meteor, she seemed to have run that ability out.

"Please, just let him be." She spoke brokenly, hoping her emotions would carry through her words. The spirits of the Cetra swarmed around her like a collective being, tendrils of lifestream brushing tentatively against her existence. They had been here long before she had died, had obscured into a single knowledge, a single power. Very few of them remembered what it was like to be human. They did not understand why the hero had just ended his life, she knew. They couldn't comprehend things like redemption and suffering. All they knew was survival. She was as alien to them as they were to her.

_Necessity, destruction. _The whole shouted around her, and Aeris tried not to flinch. She had no idea what they were referring to. _Weakening, slow death, urgency._ Part of the Cetra suddenly caught and held her, and then the images were running fluently through her mind. She saw the death of Weapon, felt the Cetra's fear as it fell wounded to the ground. Were they… did they really put Cloud on the same level as…?

"He is not a Weapon!" she shouted, pushing back at their consciousness with memories of the blond, his rare smile, his pain-filled eyes. "He's only human." And she tried to remind them of what that meant, images of family and mistakes, of love and ache and loss filling her thoughts, but they swiftly broke contact. They did not want to realize exactly what they had lost over the millennia.

_Certain death_. The lifeblood of the planet buzzed in her ears and Aeris likened the feeling to the wide eyes and rapid heartbeat of a doomed rabbit. It re-sent her the feeling of helpless fear it had undergone when Weapon fell. _Necessity, desperation._ Resounding around them all, the planet agreed. Aeris felt her heart breaking. Whatever they were going to do involved bringing Cloud back, that much was certain.

"Leave him alone!" She shouted even though she knew they wouldn't understand. "If you force him back to life again you'll be no better than Jenova with her 'son'." The Cetra remained confused but Aeris felt Gaea almost laugh, lifestream bubbling around them. The planet, oddly enough, was often much more understandable than the Cetra. Aeris thought it was because Gaea had more dealings with humanity. The Cetra were only concerned with the lifestream.

_The fight for survival. An awakening that should never have occurred. A death that cannot be allowed. The sacrifice of the one for the many. _The planet whispered all around her, and Aeris felt the frustration rising within her. How many times would Cloud have to suffer for the sake of this universe? How many times would that poor, broken boy be forced to give up everything in the face of certain destruction? Hadn't he done _enough_?

The planet and the Cetra ignored her as they spoke incomprehensibly together, manipulating the Lifestream in ways they never had before. She steeled herself against their selfishness, hating how childish the base survival instincts of the planet were. They were going to keep using Cloud until he was nothing more than a mindless shell—a broken doll no better than Sephiroth himself.

"I… I won't let you do this." Her soul commanded as she fought against the gentle waves of the lifestream. "I won't let you use him again!" She shouted, but her words fell useless against wordless beings. They merely continued their machinations, compressing and shifting the green world around them until they had created, more or less, a materia. "What..?" Aeris asked before her mouth could catch up with her mind, suddenly realizing what Gaea had planned. It wasn't just going to bring back Cloud. It was going to bring back the past. "No." She murmured brokenly "No. He won't be able to handle that. He can't possibly—!"

The Cetra pushed her feeble attempts to stop them away with one final blast, their knowledge attacking her at her very core. Aeris's existence drifted wounded and aching further and further away, but she could still see what they were doing, could still sense as the entire lifestream became a conduit for the time materia.

"Cloud," she whimpered as the warm green around her began to burn, "I'm sorry." Aeris slipped out of awareness into the comforting arms of the man who was always with her, cried into his strong chest, and knew no more.

The world took a shuddering breath, all its magic and life going up in one final blaze of beautiful glory, and left itself.

Gaea had died.

* * *

Sephiroth thought he could hear the mournful sound of rain, far away like a distant memory as he wiped the blood off his sword. The idea was improbable. It couldn't rain in the slums of Midgar, and rain even on top of the plate was an extremely rare occurrence.

"That's the last of them, General Sir!" The soldier, shaking in his boots, still managed to report with a steady voice. His back safely turned, Sephiroth grimaced. Why did the entirety of Shinra insist on putting him on the pedestal of a god? They acted like he was able and likely to take down the entire Shinra army at any moment. Why were they always so afraid of him?

_Because you're a monster_. The part of his mind that sounded strangely like Genesis echoed the answer at him and Sephiroth firmly stamped it out. That kind of thinking only led down the path to destruction. He'd seen it happen as many times as he'd care to.

"Good. Gather the troops and prepare for departure. We leave at eighteen hundred hours. He watched his men squeak in a very unbefitting way, saluting him as they scurried off to do as they were told. Sephiroth pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to think about it.

Giving the strewn bodies of Wutai rebels one last, morose glance, he turned and stalked back toward the waiting Shinra truck. Sephiroth didn't bother to try and block the sight of so much death from his mind. He knew the corporals and generals and minutemen of Wutai would continue to haunt him every time he closed his eyes—had haunted him for ten years. The guilt was slowly drowning him, but Sephiroth had long given up on washing the blood from his hands. He was merely a tool for the Shinra to use and he knew it. But what else could he do? What other place could a monster go? In a sick, twisted way, Sephiroth knew he was fulfilling some kind of purpose. He was killing so others wouldn't have to.

If he thought about it that way it didn't hurt quite as much.

"Sir? The trucks are all up and running. A clean-up team is being sent down at nineteen-hundred hours." One of the few troops who didn't run in fear at the sight of the "great General" addressed him as he sheathed his legendary sword. Sephiroth nodded and pulled himself aboard the hulking metal vehicle. He probably should have stayed to supervise the bumbling soldiers under his command as they loaded the trucks, but he just couldn't face the dreary light of the slums any longer. He hated these goddamn cleanup missions. Why did Shinra need a SOLDIER first just to slaughter a tiny resistance group? It was overkill, and it seemed nothing more than petty. A power play, he supposed. Sephiroth smirked. As if Shinra had not already proved its power to the world by destroying an entire nation.

The General kept his balance as the truck jerked suddenly forward; inwardly amused when half the men in the dock with him fell on their faces. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the rattling metal wall, eager for the journey to end. Even with the engine thrumming loudly in his ears and the incompetent troops babbling around him, he could not banish the haunting sound of rain.


	3. Homocidal Suicide

Yay! Relitively quick update! :) Strange. This was the one that was supposed to be slow, not Play the Fool... And honestly, I expected myeself to update the KH one before I worked on this one again... But what can I say? Some good old fashioned FFVII angst seems to be what I'm craving. I'm like a pregnant woman when I write... It's scary. And I tend to go back and edit things... a lot. So don't be surprised if there is suddenly an extra paragraph somewhere were there wasn't one before. This is why I usually don't post things until I've had them written for a while...

So... Don't own the characters, do own the plot. Yadda yadda yadda, you know the rest.

Enjoy, and please review! Any kind of criticism would be welcome.

* * *

"Don't worry about it, Cloud. I mean, there's always make-up exams, right?" The horror stricken blond couldn't look away from his test results to respond. His bunk-mate sighed. "Look, you just sit here for a few minutes, alright? I'm gonna go grab the others, and we'll all go out on the town. How does that sound?" Cloud still made no attempt to answer, simply let himself fall back onto the bed, hands beginning to shake. "Right." The cadet was trying to be helpful, but he was awfully quick to run away as the tears began. Cloud paid him no mind, had never given him a glance really. How could he with this horrible failure staring him in the face?

_"So you want to be in SOLDIER?" _Zack's words only a few days ago drifted taunting through his mind as he felt his dreams shatter. "_Good luck._" It had been said kindly, but now Cloud couldn't help but feel like Zack had known he would fail. A part of Cloud had always felt like he wasn't good enough, had always known he wouldn't reach his dreams, but for the most part he'd been positive he would pass. He thought if he just wished hard enough, if he just dreamed hard enough and kept going no matter what, he would make it. Gaea, how could he have been so naïve?

Cloud's sobs grew more violent as the minutes passed slowly by, the horrid paper decrying his failure clenched tightly in one fist. He had spent so many years of his life on this dream—had never paused to think it might not come to fruition. What was there left for him now? What could he possibly do? Certainly he couldn't go home. There was no way he could bare the shame of returning a failure to a village that had never seen him as anything better. He couldn't bear to let them see they were right—couldn't shame his mother like that if nothing else.

What was he going to do? Fifteen years old and his life was already over. Cloud gave himself over to despair and cried himself to sleep.

* * *

Sephiroth glared at the paperwork on his desk and willed it to combust. Why the hell _he_ had been given most of the paperwork for the SOLDIER department in Lazard's absence was a mystery. He wouldn't put it past the director to have left specific instructions: leave the paperwork with the person who despises it the most. Sadistic bastard. Didn't they know he had other things to be doing? Like researching the shit Hollander had done to his best friends, seeing what had driven everything to hell and whether or not he might be caused to follow.

Gaea… Genesis and Angeal…Sephiroth shook his head to banish the memories, throwing himself into the desk chair with new purpose. He didn't want to think about that now, and so he wouldn't.

"Knock knock!" The overly cheerful greeting was all the warning Sephiroth got before there was another SOLDIER 1st in his apartment. The General massaged his temples in an effort to keep the coming migraine at bay. He didn't think it would work. Zackary Fair was always a headache to deal with. "And today for your reading enjoyment, we have the results of the latest SOLDIER tests!" Zack bound into the modest office as he spoke, dropping the sizeable test results on top of Sephiroth's mountain of work. Why was _Zack_ the only person who wasn't afraid of him? Sephiroth very much wished the hyperactive man would have a healthy terror of his wrath—at least enough to keep him from trouncing into his apartment and sitting sideways in his reading chair.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Zackary?" He put on his best glare, willing the dark-haired SOLDIER away. Sephiroth couldn't handle the boy's cheer right now.

"Not unless you want to go grab some Wutaiese take-out." Zack flashed a toothy grin, and Sephiroth stopped himself from lunging across the desk to strangle him. It was only out of respect for Angeal that he hadn't killed Zack several times over by now. "c'mon, Seph. I'll even pay!"

"I told you not to call me that." The response left him before he even knew what he was doing. What was he thinking? He knew the fastest way to get Zack to leave was to ignore him. Why was he prolonging his own misery?

"And I told _you_ not to call me Zackary, but it's not like you listen." Sephiroth was just about to retort, ignoring strategy be damned, when he felt it.

It was as if the entire world had turned upside down—an extremely intense vertigo that, had he not been sitting down, would have brought him to his knees. His ears were ringing, every beat of his heart unbearably loud. His vision oscillated between green and black, room swaying incomprehensively when, as quickly as it had begun, everything stopped.

"What the hell?" Zack's eloquent question hung heavy in the air as they both tried to regain their breath, fighting to regain some sense of reality.

"You felt it too?" Sephiroth's first instinct was to think this was the beginning of the end—the start of his own descent into insanity. But if Zack could feel it as well…

"Yeah." The usually cheerful man rasped, running a hand through his hair. "_Shit_ that was weird." They sat amicably together in the silence, minds racing to figure out just what the hell had happened until Zack's phone rang. The tune Sephiroth remembered hearing in the Shinra lobby—catchy and altogether too cheerful—wafted through the air and made him jump. Zack was laughing at him as he flipped his phone open.

"Zack here." The brilliant smile was wiped off his face as he heard the voice on the other line. Sephiroth's mako-enhanced hearing could pick up a woman sobbing. He watched his subordinate's face turn increasingly pale as the conversation continued.

"Aeris, don't go anywhere, I'll be right there." Sephiroth frowned as Zack hung up. Anything that could knock the smile of Zack's face that fast and keep it away was definitely not a good thing. "Can you cover for me?" The SOLDIER 1st asked as he stood and walked to the door. Sephiroth found himself following.

"Of course." He answered, surprised at his own vehemence. He hadn't done anything for a fellow SOLDIER in a long time, not since… well. A long time.

"Thanks." Zack's answer was warm and congenial, not at all grating on his nerves. Sephiroth took it in like a dying man. Had he really been so starved for human contact? "And Seph?"

"What?" His response was much sharper this time, annoyed by Zack's mutilation of his name.

"Make sure you eat dinner. Despite what Hojo says, you're still human, you know?" Sephiroth didn't answer as Zack quietly closed the door. He didn't think he could have spoken if he tried.

* * *

Cloud didn't know what happened. One moment he was more free than he'd ever felt in his life—drifting weightless and formless in a sea of peaceful green, slowly forgetting what pain even meant. The next he was thrown back into the nightmare, defined in a corporeal way and definitely breathing. He held a hand to his suddenly beating heart in confusion, noting that there was no hole there.

The hero pounded the dusty ground and cursed every deity he could think of. He could feel the tears welling in too-dry eyes as the sun beat cruelly down. When would it all end? If a sword to the heart hadn't managed to kill him, hadn't even left a mark, then nothing would. He couldn't die. He couldn't fucking die! Cloud laughed hysterically as the dam broke, his anguish finally overwhelming him. Laughter turned quickly to sobs, his whole body curling in on itself in some effort to find comfort. He was doomed to immortality—never to see the ones he loved in the lifestream. He could never escape this horrible reality, could never stop making horrible mistakes and getting people killed. Maybe Vincent had had the right idea all those years ago. Maybe the smartest thing for him to do would be to go to sleep and never awake until the end of the world.

"What?" The nearby voice startled him out of his pity fest and Cloud fell back on his warrior's instincts. Strength he hadn't had before filled his limbs as he rolled quickly off of the ground, every piece of him focused on the potential threat. It wasn't until he was up on his feet with his sword in his hands that he even realized he had moved. Gaea, he really was a perfect weapon, wasn't he? Hojo would be so proud.

"Who are you?" The person before him eyed him warily, eyes filled with fear. It wasn't until Cloud had determined the boy was not a threat that he realized the most disconcerting thing—this newcomer looked like a younger Cloud.

The hardened warrior frowned, his concentration slipping as his confusion multiplied. Not only was he staring at a doppelganger of himself, but the surroundings seemed to have arbitrarily shifted. Now they were standing on the hillock near Shinra Mansion, crossing a continent from the Deserts to Nibelheim. This was a dream. It had to be. Dropping his sword, Cloud let himself slide back to the ground and gave his aching legs a break. He'd established that this wasn't real, but then, what _had_ been? Had he tried to kill himself at all? Had he ever even left Edge?

The look-alike chose that moment to fall in shock. Cloud paid him little mind. It was a dream, so it wasn't like the child mattered. Besides, deep down, Cloud very much _hated_ the cadet he had been. He was almost afraid of the loathing emerging the longer the copy was around. That child had been so stupid—had left a caring mother and callously ignored her, had staked everything on a foolish dream and forgotten that there was more to life when he'd failed. Cloud had grown to love the things others took for granted in life, to appreciate the days the air was not pungent with blood, when everyone he loved was not dead or in danger because of him, when his entire body wasn't screaming in agony. All his younger self had cared about was a test score. It made Cloud sick just to think about it.

"Are you… me?" Younger Cloud questioned after some time had passed. The anger the blond had barely been keeping in check finally spilled over.

"NO!" He raged, picking his sword back up with one hand and tearing at the grass with the other. "I'm not you! Not anymore." He clenched First Tsurugi tightly as he glared his counterpart down, hating every nuance, every fidget, every quality he found. "You… you… FAILURE!" He shouted as he stood and lunged, driving his sword through the representation of every weakness, every mistake he'd ever made. There was a moment of silence as he looked himself in the eye, watching the life fade from un-tainted eyes. Then the teen faded like nothing more than a bad dream.

Cloud panted and shuddered as the rage slowly left him. He did not think he'd ever been so furious, and yet he couldn't help but feel guilty. The cadet Cloud had only been a dream, but part of him hated how easy it was to drive his blade through the boy's body.

Unable to die and quick to murder. Cloud had to laugh as he felt the waking world slowly take hold and draw him away from sleep. He was becoming more and more the monster everyone had accused Sephiroth of being. Maybe one day someone would have to hunt him down and kill him in order to save the planet.

The idea was strangely appealing.


	4. Favored Form of Entertainment

Yay! Record speed update! :D Aren't you proud of me?

Just got the FFVIII piano collections off Itunes. Oh. My. God. IT'S AWESOME! I can't stop listening to it.  Highly recommend it to everyone who likes piano and or Final Fantasy. You'll love it.

Not sure how I feel about this chapter, but at least it wasn't hard to write! A little on the short side, but I didn't think I should drag it out just for length.

Please review!

Disclaimer: Don't own don't sue.

* * *

Zackary Fair was _not_ having a good day. It had started off badly when he'd been handed instruction duty. That would have been okay, even though Zack wasn't particularly fond of clueless recruits, except that one of them managed to cause a small problem with a fire materia. The things were _practice_ materia! How the hell that kid managed to set the pants of seven supervising officers ablaze was anyone's guess. Although it was admittedly funny to watch Corporal Hughes dance about smacking at his own ass, as instructor, Zack was the one who had to listen to seven irrational tirades about keeping his troops in line.

For the rest of the afternoon, he'd apparently been designated Shinra paper-boy. The amount of work that Lazard handled during the day was rather insane. Now, without the director, it was up to the SOLDIER firsts to divide all that shitty paperwork amongst themselves. Zack, being a natural procrastinator and of poor penmanship, managed to shirk this duty quite well. He suspected that Sephiroth had been given his share of the work, actually… In any case, he usually managed to get by on being lazy and picking up a few extra missions, but not today. Oh no. Today a few secretaries had batted their eyelashes and flirted and somehow managed to get him to promise he would deliver all of the SOLDIER paperwork for the day. Honestly, women. They were the spawn of Satan!

Well… all of them except Aeris, anyway. And that was a whole other story. He'd just delivered the last gargantuan stack of paperwork when he received her frantic call. Hyne. He'd never been so worried in all his life! He thought she'd been grievously injured from the way she was wailing—had hightailed it to the church at full SOLDIER speed, frightening several pedestrians and train goers along the way. By the time he finally got there a half hour later, she was still crying just as heart-wrenchingly on the church floor. The ribbon he'd bought her and the strange materia she had taken to tying in it were clutched between shaking hands like prayer beads, hair down and falling in gentle waves over her back. She looked like an angel in anguish and Zack hadn't been able to stand it.

He had rushed toward her, gathered her in his arms and tried to absorb some of the pain. Nothing seemed to work. She kept babbling about the death of everything, about Gaea suddenly not being there. It didn't make any sense at all to him, but it had apparently affected her _quite_ deeply. The only thing for it was to hold her until she cried herself to sleep and carry her back home. He really wanted to stay and make sure she was ok when she awoke, but he'd already ignored three calls from the company. Doubtless he was needed on some mission. So he'd ignored the poisonous glare from Aeris's mother, carried her upstairs, and brushed the tear-tracks gently away. Even in sleep she looked upset.

After filling Elmyra in on what little he knew, he was off again. A quick check of his phone messages told him that he'd been asked to go on a quick "cleanup" mission in the slums, which apparently Sephiroth had taken care of. Zack winced. Sephiroth had just done a clean-up yesterday. He hated that the General had had to take another one on for his sake. Those missions were the absolute worst. They left even the best of SOLDIERs feeling like a soulless husk. Angeal used to complain about the horrible things the company had forced Sephiroth to do—how the seemingly untouchable General was very close to breaking. All Zack had to do was look into emerald eyes and see Angeal was right. Sephiroth was only human after all.

He'd managed to get back to the Shinra compound just before midnight, starving and completely exhausted. His new SOLDIER1st apartment was on the 50th floor, same as Sephiroth. It was only a few steps from the elevator, but he was so _tired. _Even the task of walking through the foyer was taxing. He was just about to hit the "up" button on the elevator when his phone rang.

"Zackary Fair here, favorite plaything of the gods, how may I help you this evening?" Zack thought his greeting rather witty but apparently Tseng didn't. Zack could practically hear the Turk's eyes roll.

"Seems there's been some trouble in the cadet barracks." Tseng's tone was strictly business, as usual. However, there was just something about it that made him sound like he knew something Zack didn't. "The medics were rather frantic when I talked to them last. Something about a mako-poisoned cadet but it didn't make any sense." Zack couldn't help himself. He smirked.

"What? Something the Turks don't know?" He loved baiting the forever calm Tseng. "Heaven forbid! What in Gaea's name is the world coming to?"

"Yes, well. Since you're on your way back from a certain house in Sector 5, I'm sure you won't mind dropping in and figuring things out for me, will you?" The Gongaga native felt his jaw drop. How the hell—? No one had tailed him! He'd checked. More than once.

"You bastard." He half-laughed the insult, simultaneously impressed and terrified that the Turks had managed to follow him all this time. Or had they been following Aeris? Neither prospect was a very happy one. "Alright. Mission accepted." Zack gave a mock salute even though he knew Tseng wouldn't see it, hanging up the PHS before turning around and heading back the way he came.

It had been a long day, and it was shaping up to be a _long_ night.

* * *

The moment Cloud awoke, he was thrown back into a world he felt all too familiar with—pain. Tearing, shredding, bone grinding pain the likes of which he had not felt since Hojo's lab. He could feel the mako eating away at him, burning his very blood and latching on to every cell with a parasitic vengeance. He didn't understand what was happening, but he didn't have the presence of mind to wonder about it. Somewhere nearby someone was screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Cloud thought it might have been him, but he wasn't sure. His nerves were completely overloaded. He couldn't tell whether he was screaming his throat raw or not.

He seemed to drift forever in that world of agony, lost and unable to do anything but feel. The blond wanted nothing more than to return to blessed darkness again—to fall back into dreams, even if they were confusing and full of regrets. Cloud was just on the brink of unconsciousness when he felt them. Hands. Gloved hands reaching, poking prodding. No. No! He wouldn't do this, not anymore. He wouldn't let himself be Hojo's plaything, no matter how blinded by pain he was.

His overloaded muscles couldn't correctly comprehend the order his mind sent, but he felt his fist connect with something nonetheless. He could feel other presences around him, their life forces weak and fragile, coming closer. They were the assistants, he knew, come to restrain him and force some other unnatural thing into his blood—something to make him more a monster than he already was. He forced himself to stand on jerking legs, unable to see but perfectly able to fight. Hojo wouldn't get him alive. Not this time.

* * *

Reno whistled as he watched another medical aide go flying across the tiny room. The latest in sedation technology hung useless at his side. He'd already hit blondie here with at least six darts. Any more than that, and he risked stopping the kid's heart. Besides, this was pretty entertaining.

For the last hour or so, this cadet, earlier dubbed choco-boy, had been throwing Shinra medical staff around as if they were toys. Reno had to admit, he'd had the urge to do the same on more than one occasion. The meds were so… _creepy_. They spoke about their patients as if they were nothing more than science experiments. Tseng had gotten a frantic call from a groaning medic and had sent Reno over to knock choco-boy out. Well… he _had_ tried, albeit not very hard. He probably could have had a better chance at knocking the kid out if he'd aimed for the neck, and not the arm. Oops. Oh well! He cheered as blondie threw off three medics at once, each one armed with a sleep materia. There was nothing to do but sit here and wait for plan B to show up. Reno thought he might as well enjoy the show.

"Never fear, Zack is here!" Speak of the devil. SOLDIER's most hyper member came bounding into the room, only to reel in shock. "Cloud…?" So _that_ was blondie's name… Nah. Reno still thought Choco-boy fit him better.

Everyone in the room froze as the cadet in question seemed to suddenly seize up, dilated eyes focusing on Zack. Well, that explained why the tranquilizers hadn't worked. Cloud's gaze was glowing unnaturally in the dim light. The blond took a shuddering step forward and Reno felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. This kid was supposed to be a cadet? For his eyes to be glowing _that_ brightly, he'd have to have been given _countless_ doses of mako. Shit. It was a wonder the blond hadn't gone into a coma yet.

"Za…ck…?" He managed to choke out just before falling the cement floor. The SOLDIER 1st seemed to get over his surprise, rushing forward to help the cadet gasping for air. A few nearby meds tried to warn him off, and were promptly swatted aside. Reno snickered.

"What did you _do_, kiddo?" Zack muttered under his breath as he knelt next to Cloud on the cold floor. Choco-boy seemed close to hyperventilating, but was apparently still conscious. His white-knuckled hand reached out to grasp Zack's shirt with unnatural strength. "Cloud, can you hear me?" The dark haired SOLDIER asked, frowning. Reno thought the world might end. He'd never seen Mr. Hyper this serious before. Even on missions he was over the top and energetic. "It's okay, Cloud. We're going to take care of you, yeah? So just calm down. You'll get through this."

The redheaded Turk lamented the loss of an amusing pastime and decided this was his cue to leave. He didn't feel like watching a pitiful pep-talk. Reno couldn't suppress a flinch as he heard Cloud's breathing finally even out. He had seen Hojo's experiments often enough, had been the reason some of them were even in that madman's clutches. Blondie's eyes were glowing _way_ too much, way too quickly. Now that the kid had fallen asleep, he would probably never wake up.

Reno set his mouth in a firm line as he continued the trek back to his apartment, shouldering the tranquilizer gun. He just hoped he wouldn't have to be the one to explain to Zack just where his cadet friend had gone.


	5. The Creation's Triumph

Wow. Totally didn't think this one was gonna be so long… But what do you know? Yay me, I guess. :)

Eh… life kinda sucks right now between my stomach being screwy and my parents getting divorced but at least that means a lot more writing, right? God. What is it with us literary artists? We need to be unhappy to be productive!

Anywho, don't remember if I've said it before, so I'll say it again. FFVIII piano score? Best. Thing. Ever. And if you're really bored and looking for some laughs, go look up Yugioh the abridged series on Youtube or Google. I guarantee you'll laugh. Even if you've never seen an episode of Yugioh in your life.

Don't own don't sue

Please review!

(Hey… that rhymes. Oh God, I need to sleep…)

*11/02/08 Just edited one _teensy_ part of this. Hope no one got any weird chapter alerts.

* * *

Tseng was furious.

He'd been through this enough times who know what the President's game was. Shinra would assign a few lowly Turk cadets to his son as protection, make sure the rest of the force was busy, then allow Rufus to be "kidnapped" for a while. Of course, the fact that he usually turned up in a hospital a few days later, pumped full of mako and gods knew what else, was merely a coincidence.

It had been worse when Rufus was younger, back when the Turks were still completely loyal to the president. All that had changed when Tseng gained power. He hadn't been able to betray the blond child with such innocent eyes. Even though he'd learned not to act on his emotions, he couldn't just look away as Hojo experimented on the boy. If nothing else, he couldn't stand the suicide attempts. So Tseng started training Rufus, assigning better bodyguards when he couldn't be there himself. Things had been getting better. The mysterious disappearances had slowed almost completely in recent years. The enhancements Hojo had forced on the young Vice President were the very things that allowed him to avoid further treatment. Rufus was as good as any of Tseng's prized agents. Perhaps better.

But when Hojo _did_ manage to get his grimy hands on the teen… Last time Rufus had lain near comatose in medical ward for a week. As Tseng stepped into the ward and caught sight of the bandages and the monitoring equipment, he wondered how long it would take this time. He swore to Leviathan and took a seat near the foot of the bed. One of these days Rufus's luck would run out, and he would never wake up again. Of course, this wouldn't be much of a problem for the President. That bastard couldn't care less for his own son. Rufus was nothing but a political pawn and an easy test subject for him.

Tseng paused his mental ranting to take a survey of the tiny room. They were within the structure of the building, far from any outside walls and therefore external projectiles below the size of a small plane were no longer a threat. The surrounding rooms and hallways were filled with medical staff and orderlies, however. He wouldn't put it past Hojo to develop some kind drilling gas canister, and so he would have to watch the walls. This room was directly below the soldier floor, beneath the materia room. Little chance of attack from above then, especially considering the steel plating that covered every inch of the materia room. Below were a few offices, and the floor itself contained a ventilation shaft. That was the most dangerous point of entry, besides the obvious door.

Tseng's thought process seemed paranoid, even to himself, but he wouldn't put anything past the President and Hojo these days. They'd been driven to such antics as sneaking through the vents or shooting sedative darts through the windows in the past. That was why now, when Rufus was at his most vulnerable, it was Tseng guarding him and not some no-name cadet with nothing better to do.

Time ticked slowly by with nothing to mark it but the slow blip of Rufus's heart monitor. Tseng felt his eyes growing heavy. It was already past midnight, and he knew he couldn't sleep just yet. Cissnei had promised to take over protection duty at three after she got some rest from her latest reconnaissance mission. He wasn't really comfortable leaving Rufus like that, even though Cissnei was among his most trusted agents. Usually when Rufus magically reappeared like this Tseng wouldn't leave his side for at least two days. But he was dead on his feet after the last few days searching for Hojo's latest hiding spot. He wasn't a SOLDIER; he needed to sleep in order to function. He wouldn't be any help to Rufus if he was too tired to spot the threats anymore.

In a last ditch effort to stay awake, he pulled out his cell phone. He was just about to call his secretary and ask her to bring down some paperwork to do when he heard the commotion outside. The Turk's first instinct was to put himself between the door and his charge, making sure that nothing could slip behind him on either side. When he realized the sound was not moving any closer, he allowed curiosity to get the better of him and opened the door just enough to peer outside.

"What do you mean I can't go with him?" The unmistakable voice of SOLDIER 1st Zack Fair twisted its way through the halls all the way from the floor entrance. Tseng's eyes narrowed as he watched the orderlies wheel a gurney into the adjacent room. This section of the med-bay was reserved for mako-related accidents, which of course meant Hojo's experiments. And the report one of his top agents had sent him just yesterday about Hojo's secret doings made no mention of a spiky-haired blond cadet. Either Hojo had a secret program the Turks hadn't been able to discover, or this cadet was involved in a very interesting accident. Either way, the fact that he hadn't heard anything about it yet was disconcerting.

Whoever had tried to stop Zack was attempting to reason with him, but the exact words were lost on Tseng. It didn't matter what was said, though. When Zack put his mind to something, there was no stopping him from getting what he wanted. Tseng smiled and shook his head as, in the next moment, the mako enhanced swordsman was tearing down the hall, a harassed orderly on his heels.

"Which room?" Zack asked, seeing Tseng despite the fact that he was hardly visible through the tiny crack in the door.

"My left." Zack wasted no time in cutting the lock clear off the handle and stepping defiantly inside, Buster sword drawn as an obvious threat to anyone who told him to go back. Tseng laughed to himself and let the door close completely. It seemed he wasn't the only one with something to protect.

* * *

When Sephiroth made the ranks of SOLDIER all those years ago, he had to admit he'd been happy. Or as close to it as he was capable of being anyway. Because once he was officially on the books as a member of SOLDIER, Hojo could no longer do whatever the hell he liked. He was protected so to speak. Granted, that protection had come at a heavy price; he'd been forced straight into the command of the Wutai war. Nonetheless, he would selfishly be glad he had escaped Hojo's clutches. Even if it meant the deaths of thousands of Wutaiese.

However, since Lazard had apparently decided to go AWOL, the next highest ranking General Sephiroth had been given departmental command over SOLDIER. And because the gods had a sick, twisted sense of humor, Sephiroth had received a notice this morning that Hojo might be overstepping his bounds a bit. A few thirds had nervously reported some strange simulations and goings-on in the research room of the SOLDIER floor. It was the responsibility of the department head to deal with such incidents directly. Lazard had complained more than once about Hojo's inability to cooperate with the department. The Director had even filed a formal complaint with President Shinra. But Hojo was just so brilliant that the president refused to let him go.

Waiting by the glass elevator, the General took a deep breath and tried to retain his composure. It wouldn't do for some cadet to walk by at a time like this and see him trying to bash his head in to the wall, now would it? He pushed the up arrow again and resisted the urge to tap his foot. He did not fidget. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness—something he _certainly_ didn't need going in to a confrontation with Hojo. Gaea, how he hated that man. All he had to do was hear that oily, wheeling laugh and his memories took over. How many years had he been subject to that man's "research"? How many times had he been forced unceremoniously through mako showers and painful injections? Hojo was the reason Sephiroth didn't know whether or not he was even human anymore.

The SOLDIER growled, stepping into the finally open elevator and pressing the button for the 67th floor with unnecessary force. He gritted his teeth as he wrestled with his emotions, knowing that he had to be as detached as possible if he wanted to beat Hojo at his own game. Sephiroth forced himself to regain composure, becoming the General once more. The cold mask that had gotten him through the Wutai war was an easy one to slip into, and he hid behind it with more than a little relief. Like this he didn't have to face himself. He didn't have to feel guilty for something that was never under his control to begin with.

The elevator arrived entirely too soon, Sephiroth thought. He stepped onto the cold floor and ignored the frightened stares of the nearby staff. It didn't matter. He didn't need anyone's acceptance. Besides, here at least, he kind of deserved the fear. Last time Hojo had managed to corner him into an "evaluation" he'd nearly lit several assistants on fire. Resisting the urge to chuckle at the memory, he stopped one of the white-coated men unlucky enough to be in the hall at the time.

"I need to speak with the Professor." Sephiroth drawled coolly, his voice betraying none of the disgust he actually felt. The assistant actually squeaked.

"He's… He's working with the specimens right now, but I don't think you should—" Sephiroth raised one silver eyebrow in expectation, just _daring_ the unremarkable coward to finish his sentence. "Um… just keep going to your left sir." The General allowed himself to smirk as he turned on his heel and stalked away. It was ironic that the assistant feared his wrath more than Hojo's. That mad scientist had done far more inhumane things in the name of science than Sephiroth could in a hundred Wutai wars.

He forced himself to look straight ahead as he began to enter the specimen holding bay. There were always horribly mutated things here in this hall, poor unfortunate souls tortured for nothing more than twisted curiosity's sake. Looking at them just made him feel a thousand different things he couldn't understand—guilt, horror, and some kind of desperation. It wasn't something he wanted to deal with before facing down his worst enemy.

"Clearance? The proper clearance? Idiot!" Hojo's raving echoed towards him around the nearest specimen tube and Sephiroth's eyes narrowed. He ducked behind the tube and slid forward inch by inch until he could just see the back of the scientist's head. "Did Grimoire ever ask for clearance before beginning his research on Chaos? Did Gast have clearance to unearth the most magnificent being ever created? NO!" Sephiroth still wasn't able to really tell what was going on, but he could imagine the way Hojo's assistants would wince and grimace. He couldn't say he blamed them. "Bah. Clearance." Hojo snorted before turning his back on whoever he was talking to and stepping further into Sephiroth's line of sight. "This specimen could lead us to new discoveries about the effects of mako on the mind, perhaps a new branch of even stronger SOLDIER's! If you would stop such a thing for the sake of clearance I fear you have no place in the field of science!"

Sephiroth frowned as the assistants docilely followed their boss, pushing what looked like a gurney from the med-bay toward the specimen elevator. They were just about to start the lift when he recognized the blond about to be delivered into Hojo's clutches. Cloud Strife. The SOLDIER trainee who'd been mysteriously mako-poisoned two days ago. The very same cadet who'd made it necessary to personally come and remove Zack from the med-bay just this morning.

Huh. Apparently his fellow SOLDIER 1st had been correct in his paranoia.

"Excuse me professor, but I believe that is a SOLDIER cadet, is it not?" Sephiroth got some satisfaction out of the way Hojo jumped when he chose to reveal himself. The assistants froze.

"No of course not, you must be mistaken!" Sephiroth frowned and stepped further into the chamber, drawing himself up to his full height. Hojo's peons seemed to stop breathing.

"Really? That's not trainee Cloud Strife from Nibelheim, recently placed in the med-bay?" Hojo was glaring at him, but Sephiroth didn't let it bother him. He'd long stopped worrying about gaining Hojo's approval in any way. "You know, I don't believe I saw the paperwork for his transfer to your lab…" Sephiroth's eyes flashed and he rolled the gurney back out of the elevator, both assistants falling to the floor in fear. Hojo bared his teeth.

"You have no authority to—!" Sephiroth actually growled. He _hated_ this presumptuous, sick, evil man. He hated what Hojo had created him to be, and if it were up to him he would spare everyone from the cruel hands of science. Usually, that feeble wish could do nothing but those in SOLDIER were _his_ men under _his_ control now. He didn't have to let Hojo do anything to them if he didn't want to. And knowing that felt _damn_ good.

"As acting director of SOLDIER and General of the Shinra army, I have every authority over what happens to my troops." Hojo had a mad glint in his eye, the perfect picture of rage. Good, Sephiroth thought. Let the scientist loose his composure. That just made it easier for Sephiroth to win. Hojo was an idiot when angry.

"You would stop the progress of science for nothing more than a cockroach trainee?!" The madman screeched. Sephiroth looked at him disdainfully.

"Yes. This is the last straw, professor. I know that this is not your first breech of Shinra's clearance laws." The assistants gave everything away by wincing and glancing around the room. Hojo merely fumed. "I don't want to see you on the SOLDIER research floor again, is that clear _professor_?" Sephiroth spat the word as if it were a curse. Hojo seemed to have been struck dumb until the General moved to leave, pulling Cloud along with him.

"I assure you, you do _not_ have the authority for _that_ demand! Why, the president himself has allowed me to—" Sephiroth laughed, determining that this was the best time to pull his trump card. Thank Gaea for the Turks.

"Did the president give you the authority to begin a secret lab in the basement too?" Hojo was silent again and Sephiroth knew he had just won. "It would be a shame if he had to cancel that little endeavor, wouldn't it?" Hojo found his voice again in seconds, his body jerking with every word.

"Do not interfere with my research! Without it, Shinra and SOLDIER would fall apart! Where would they be without—" Sephiroth had heard this speech a thousand times. He rolled his eyes and didn't bother to turn around.

"Just stay away from my troops, professor, and you won't have anything to worry about." Everything was silent as he wheeled the catatonic cadet back down the specimen-filled hallway. It was only when he got to the elevator that the sounds of shrieking assistants and flying equipment could be heard. Hojo was prone to temper tantrums when he didn't get his way. He was probably doing more damage to his "precious research" than Sephiroth had by denying him a specimen.

Sephiroth couldn't help it. He smiled.


	6. Watching through a Wall of Sound

Ok, to clear this up, I think things are probably a little bit different from canon, but I tried to get a time period as close as possible. So this is going to be _just_ after the coordinated Genesis attacks at Junon, Costa del Sol, etc. I think I messed things up with when Cloud fails, but oh well. It's ffn, right? So yeah, Zack knows Genesis might still be alive; he's just back from hiatus. I'm working under the assumption that Crisis Core is stretched over a lot more time than it actually is.

Bleh. So for the last chapter, I got a grand total of two reviews. (as of right now.) Thank you two those two mahvelous people, but I have to admit my confidence has been a bit shaken. Is anyone even reading this anymore?

This chapter might get re-done later. (Of course, I've said that before, and then it never happens... Just thought I'd warn you.)

A friend of mine thinks that Zack is a bit too childish… I don't know. Zack seemed to write himself, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. I tried going back and making him a little less ADD, but then it didn't sound right anymore. Well, just read it and tell me what you think.

…So…. Spore, yeah? Pretty awesome game. I asked for it for Christmas. I have to admit, my sole purpose in that game will be to create a society of Moogles. When that happens, I will be content.

Don't own don't sue

And review this time! For real!

* * *

SOLDIER first Zack Fair was definitely not pouting. Pouting was just not something SOLDIERs did.

…Although, he might make an exception _just_ this once.

Apparently, it was against protocol to barge into the med-bay, break down doors and refuse to leave. Oops. Zack must have missed that memo. But Cloud had looked so horribly frightened that night. Those suddenly glowing eyes were full of an absolute terror that he'd only ever seen during the end of the Wutai war. Cloud wasn't meant to wear that expression—that determined, desperate fear. Cloud was a child, not a victim of interrogation and torture. However short a time he'd known the kid, he still thought of Cloud as a friend. The blonde's presence on the mission to Modeoheim was perhaps the only thing keeping him grounded after he'd been forced to… after Angeal's death. And so when he'd seen that look on his friend's face, something within him panicked. He didn't want to fail anyone ever again. Not after Angeal. So if Cloud needed someone to get him through this, whatever this was, Zack wanted to be that person. He wanted to protect Cloud from whatever the hell was hurting him.

But now, just because he'd threatened a few orderlies and cut the lock of a hospital room, he was stuck doing ALL the paperwork for the day. No missions. No breaks. Just a shitload of paperwork stupid Lazard had to leave behind. The hours seemed to take forever to pass, and he knew he was looking forward to a whole week of this. He half hoped the Genesis Copies would try something just so he could get out of work, but quickly repressed that thought. It was childish—something that he might have wished for back when he was a naïve kid itching for heroic battles and the chance to fight. Wutai had forced that particular trait out of him. Suitably cowed, he turned back to the endless stack of paper and started writing with a vengeance.

Somewhere on the second accident report, he got bored and started daydreaming again. Sweet Gaea, was it even _possible_ for SOLDIER members to have _this_ many accidents in a week? He didn't think they even _had_ this many SOLDIERs!

"Knock knock." Zack jumped, tossing his pen in the air in surprise. Wide blue eyes met Cissnei's laughing ones, and he tried not to let his embarrassment show on his face. He coughed and caught the pen on its way down.

"I meant to do that."

"Very impressive." She teased as she stepped further into the director's office, but her expression seemed to say that this was much more than a friendly visit. Zack frowned. If _one_ more thing went wrong this week… he was going to scream.

"Is that supposed to be Hojo?" She was staring at one of the forms on his desk. Stick figures marched along the margins, killing each other in as many creative ways as he could think of. The SOLDIER shifted guiltily in his seat before crumpling the form and tossing it behind him. It wasn't like the filings department would miss _one_ little page, right? Cissnei just laughed. "Bored Zack?"

"Hell yes!" he chirped. "How many accidents can these people _have_?" He knew he was in trouble when she smirked. Smirking Turks equaled bad things.

"You do realize that that stack is actually just from yesterday." Zack stared. "And accidents aren't the half of what the director has to do in a day. You've also got weapons and defense spending to approve, employee payroll and schedules to look over, and… are you alright, Zack? You're looking a little green." The raven-haired SOLDIER sighed and let his head fall to the desk.

"Did you want to tell me something or are you just here to torture me?"

"Both!" The girl was antagonizing him on purpose. Well, women _were _the spawn of Satan. Odd. He didn't usually have that thought more than once a week. "Apparently Sephiroth's not done punishing you. Says he's got more work for you in his quarters." Zack cried a little on the inside.

"Cissnei, you beautiful awesome Turk, do you know any painless ways to kill a SOLDIER?" The smirk never left her face. Instead it became accompanied by a rather dangerous glint.

"No. But I do know quite a few painful ones." She spoke as she adjusted her leather gloves, peering at Zack out of the corner of her eye like a predator ready to spring. Still, he seemed to consider his options. What was more horrible? Torturous death or a mountain of paperwork?

"How painful are we talking here?" He asked, just to be sure.

"Oh, _excruciatingly._" Zack was just having a bit of fun, but he wasn't entirely sure if Cissnei was teasing or not anymore. "It's the mako that betrays you, you know. The accelerated healing it gives you means that even if I snap your neck you'll be around to feel it for at least—" Zack got the message. He stood up before he could turn any paler.

"Well, apparently Sephiroth has great need of me! Be seeing you Cissnei!" He called as he jogged to the door. He was definitely not running away. Running away was not something SOLDIERS did.

The most frightening laughter he'd ever heard echoed down the hall.

Okay, maybe he'd make an exception just this once.

* * *

_"So you want to be in SOLDIER?" _Cloud watched the memory from behind a sea of blue and green. He was drifting weightless and emotionless in his own mind, finally free for the first time since… well he didn't know. He couldn't remember anything at all in this blissful place, and for some reason, his amnesia was a relief. He would have wondered about it, but he didn't have the energy to be confused. "_Good luck._"

Deep within dreams, Cloud's body reached for Zack's face before it could fade out of view. He stared at his own arm, not understanding what had made him move or why his chest was suddenly aching. Had this person meant something to him before?

The blond allowed his arm to fall to his side once more, closing his eyes and ignoring the other fragments of what seemed like someone else's life. Who was to say that a before even existed? Hadn't he always been here?

He didn't know, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

* * *

Sephiroth tried to focus on the e-mail he was writing to Tseng, but the task was proving difficult. He'd called in a favor from the Turks, and had one of their medics see that Cloud was suitably taken care of. Even with the threat he'd dropped earlier, he wouldn't put it past Hojo to "accidentally" remove the cadet from the med-bay again. So he'd settled for placing Cloud on his couch. Of course, the boy couldn't stay there for _too_ long. Sephiroth had seen enough of Hojo's failed experiments to know how mako-poisoning worked. Cloud might "wake up" sometime soon, but he would probably never be more than a lifeless shell ever again. He would need someone to take care of him and a pretty good medical facility.

Usually, in a case like this, the victim would be quietly escorted home. Shinra had sent a fair number of "enhanced" troops home in the beginning of the Wutai war, back before Sephiroth had been ready to fight and the company was scrambling for an advantage. That had been his original plan, but after sifting through the blonde's file, he quickly decided it was no good. Cloud was from Nibelheim. The tiny reactor town was just a _little_ backward in the medical department. Actually, he'd just been about to transfer Cloud to the long-term care unit in Midgar Hospital when he'd gone down to talk to Hojo. The forms were still sitting on his desk.

Tseng had advised him against that. Hojo wasn't above taking patients from the hospital, especially if they had no family to notice. So he decided there was only one other option.

"Seph, is it _really_ necessary to give me more paperwork? I mean, I already—" Zack barged once again into his study without knocking. This time though, the General had been expecting it. He forced back a smile at the sight of the usually talkative SOLDIER standing speechless in his doorway. Apparently Zack had noticed his _other_ guest.

"Fair, I only gave you the accident reports for _one day_. There were a grand total of eight." Zack didn't bother to respond, just leaned his giant sword against the doorframe and rushed to his friend's side.

"What happened? Why isn't he in the med-bay?" Sephiroth didn't want to admit that he'd made a mistake, but he'd been around Angeal for far too long to let his pride get in the way of honor and what was right.

"Seems you might have been right to demand entry in the med-bay." He started, watching for his fellow SOLDIER's reaction. "Almost as soon as I pulled you out, Hojo had him moved down to the specimen lab." His concern wasn't unfounded. Zack flew off the handle.

"_What_?!" The General pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to forestall the coming headache. "You mean they—they just _took_ him? Just like that?"

"They tried to. Luckily I happened to be in the lab at the time." He had thought Zack would be angry. He didn't expect the raven-haired man to slump boneless against the couch and put his head in his hands like someone broken. "Zackary?" He knew there had to be something wrong when Zack didn't object to his full name.

"Gaea." Zack looked up after a few moments, face twisted in a painful mockery of a smile. "Is that all SOLDIER ever was? Just a group of toys for Shinra to play with!?" The anger Sephiroth had expected was making itself known now, burning extra bright in mako eyes. He could tell this had been gnawing away at Zack for far longer than just this latest episode. "Where the _hell_ is the honor in that!?" Sephiroth couldn't meet that condemning gaze. He had wondered the same thing almost all his life. "That's it!" the dark-haired swordsman shouted, jumping up to stomp across the room and collect his weapon.

"Commander Fair, what do you think you're doing?" Zack paused in the doorway, but didn't turn around.

"If SOLDIER was nothing but a lie, I'll just have to be a hero in my own right. I'm going to go kill that bastard Hojo before he can hurt anyone else." Sephiroth blinked. He hadn't quite been expecting that. "Thanks for looking out for Spike. See you at the murder trial." The words were said with Zack's usual cheery tone, but somehow they were nothing less than frightening. Sephiroth knew the SOLDIER 1st was serious, and a small part of him rejoiced at the thought of Hojo bisected by Angeal's sword. Another small piece reminded him that Zack was an important ally, and Hojo's death would not be an intelligent strategic maneuver at this point.

The largest part of him didn't want Zack to kill Hojo because _he_ wanted to do it. Slowly, painfully, and with large amounts of poisonous mako at his disposal. Sephiroth was a fan of irony.

"Zackary Fair. Do not take another step." He watched those proud shoulders tremble, knew precisely the kind of righteous fury Zack must have been feeling. Hadn't he felt the same way as he watched Angeal and Genesis slowly unravel? "Sit." He ordered. Zack seemed to debate the command before walking back into the study and plopping down somewhere near Cloud's head. He didn't drop his sword. "You can't kill Hojo."

"Why the hell not? You know it's probably _his_ fault this happened to Cloud in the first place!" Sephiroth frowned and resisted the urge to massage his temples. He certainly wouldn't put it past Hojo to try something like that: experimenting on a cadet secretly, then bringing the kid down to the labs when everyone would just assume he was in the hospital. But he couldn't let his bias get in the way. There were plenty of other ways Cloud could have gotten mako poisoning. All of them were equally terrifying in Shinra and SOLDIER's point of view.

"I've got the forms for an inquiry right here, and the Turks are already unofficially looking into it." Zack glared. He looked like nothing more than a pouting child, and Sephiroth had to work very hard not to say something teasing. "If we can catch Hojo _legally_ it will be much better for everyone involved." The SOLDIER first scoffed.

"You know as well as I do the President won't do jack squat to Hojo." His anger hadn't left, but the tension strung throughout his arms seemed to have dissipated. Sephiroth watched with relief as Zack lay his sword down by the foot of the couch and re-seated himself in a more comfortable position. The brief spout of irrationality was traded out for exhaustion.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we can't—" Whatever Sephiroth was about to say completely left his mind in the next instant.

"What?" Zack didn't understand until he turned around.

Brilliant blue eyes stared back at him.


	7. To Dream Perchance to Sleep

Hmm…. Not sure if I like this one or not.

'Course, I seem to say that every chapter, ne?

Anywho, sorry about the review replies not getting done, as well as the late chapter. It's been rougfh, if you know what I mean. *sigh*

The plan is to finish the review replies tomorrow before Japanese class, but we'll see! Thank you all so much for reviewing last chapter. Even if I'm lazy about replying, I can say that those reviews were probably the only reason this chapter got written! I might not have had the inspiration otherwise… Things have been pretty crappy.

So, yeah. Don't own, don't sue…

Enjoy!

*11/19/08 Edit. Just added a few things in the second half of the chapter. Doesn't change anything plot-wise, but makes things much less rushed. (Thanks General Poeticus. You got me thinking!) I'm a lot happier with this chapter now.

*01/22/08 Edit. Wow. I must be _really_ dyslexic. Because I went _years_ without knowing the Centra were the Cetra. I guess I got FFVIII and FFVII confused or something.... thanks for pointing out my mistake! so yeah, fixed that. Gah. That'll teach me.

* * *

Aeris winced as she heard the front door latch behind her, slightly remorseful for sneaking out against her mother's wishes like this. She resolutely ignored her conscience and continued down the well worn path to the market and then the church. Sometimes there were more important things in life than being an obedient daughter. Trying to figure out why the world had ended and restarted itself was probably one of them.

It had been two days, but she still couldn't think of that horrible, _horrible_ moment without fighting back tears. Zack and her mother had both tried to help, but they just couldn't understand and Aeris didn't think she wanted them to. As the last Cetra, she was constantly connected to everything and everyone around her. Even when she couldn't "tap in" to the planet because of the nature of the slums, she could still tell it was _there_. To have it suddenly ripped away—to hear the simultaneous wails of agony in the Lifestream as it died―was quite devastating. She would have been irreparably traumatized if it weren't for one single fact:

Everything came back.

She didn't know what to make of it. One moment every rivulet of the lifestream was suddenly roiling with death, Gaea silent for the first time in her life and everything green and good and living was gone. The next minute it was as if nothing had happened at all. She might have been tempted to believe it was some kind of nightmare if her ears were not still ringing with screams.

As it were, she was considering two of the most plausible options. Either Gaea was trying to give her some kind of warning, frightening enough that she would take action, or she was going insane. Either way, she didn't think she liked the way this was going. Impending doom or slipping sanity? Not a fun choice to have to make. So instead she was heading back to the church. It was easier to commune with the planet there. If there was any place to find answers, the church would be it.

It didn't take long to get to the old wooden doors that had become so familiar to her over the years. Her journey went without incident, which was strange when she considered the increase in monsters lately. But then again, Aeris had caught a glimpse of a black suit and red hair when she was passing through the market. Her "guardian angels" seemed to be roaming around again. She shook her head as she stepped down the aisle, perfectly aware of the Turk now leaning beside the open church door. She wasn't worried. Tseng and his group had been watching her for years and they hadn't tried to drag her off yet. It would be some years before she ran out of time and Hojo decided he wanted her back.

Aeris banished those depressing thoughts from her mind and knelt beside her flowers. It was hard to calm herself enough to access the lifestream, but she managed within a few minutes. She had done this often throughout her life in Midgar. Dipping into the lifestream to speak with the planet was comforting, and seemed to make even this concrete jungle seem sane. The lifestream was familiar to her. So she was almost sent careening back to the church floor when she realized that it _wasn't_.

It was still the lifestream—still comforting in its strange way, still roiling with warmth, but it seemed to have picked up a whole new feeling. It was tainted by pain and regret and the fear of a hunted animal. She felt like crying in frustration. She _knew _something horrible had happened the other day! Something horrible had _changed the lifestream _and she'd been powerless to stop it.

The calming tendrils surrounding her sensed her distress, and brushed against her mind in an attempt to help. Life itself had always adored the Cetra. It lavished attention on the last of its favorite children, like a child itself in its simple care. Aeris smiled as the bright green snaked its way protectively around her. Her dear lifestream had not changed at all, it seemed. No. Something _within_ it had.

With that realization came a sudden increase in the constant buzzing in her ears. The distant voices of her ancestors became louder and louder, rising to a crescendo in her strained psyche. _Stop!_ She tried to command them, but she was never very good at communicating with the Cetra. Gaea, the _Cetra?!_ She could feel their black terror, was choking on the poison that had pervaded them. _They_ were the source of the lifestream's taint? What in Gaea's name was going on!?

_Death, renewal, survival._ The Cetra were hurting her with this sudden, direct contact and Aeris felt the pain burn through her like a white-hot flame. Was she screaming? She wasn't quite sure. Was it possible to scream in this place? She tried to gather her thoughts back together to ward her attackers away but they did not allow her enough time. _Necessity, Destruction, Rebirth._ They were obviously trying to tell her something, but the Cetra as a whole were too much for her still physical mind. Aeris scarcely had the energy to breathe, let alone understand.

Caught up in the overload of senses and too much knowledge, the flower girl scarcely noticed when tendrils of green dragged her quickly away from the threat. Aeris smiled as soon as she was able to think again. The lifestream was pulsing warm and protective around her, masking her from the mind of the Cetra horde. She didn't understand why her ancestors were now so corrupted, nor why Gaea was choosing to be silent through it all, but it was good to know the lifestream itself remained unchanged. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that the lifestream, planet, and Cetra were three separate entities. It usually did what Gaea and the Cetra commanded it to. Still, knowing the lifestream was safe was a small consolation. There was something horribly wrong with the Cetra. And she hadn't felt or heard the planet even once yet, so who was to say Gaea was any better off? This little information gathering quest of hers was earning more questions than answers and she wasn't quite sure what to do.

She was just about to give up and go back to reality when she caught sight of her strange surroundings. The lifestream had carried her to a part of itself she'd never seen before. Once the black spots had stopped dancing through her vision, she felt herself reel in wonder. Instead of the uniform green she'd come to cherish, the waves around her were an undulating rainbow of light, pervaded by the occasional green wisp. It was beautiful, but not impossible. Something as diverse and wonderful as life itself didn't have to be consistent. No, what made her forget everything she was trying to do and stare was the figure drifting towards her on a wave of green.

* * *

Cloud had been here for what felt like an eternity, drifting among the fragments of nightmare, when the world began to shift. The memories, if that was what they even were, retreated to some other part of this empty void. He aimlessly pondered the relief he felt at their passing. Why should it matter to him whether he saw them or not? Had he been a part of that world at one time? No. He was sure he had always been here amongst the lights and the silence—adrift in an empty nothing. That was simply who he was, wasn't it?

The arguments he wanted to make against his own thoughts slipped away like water, and Cloud soon forgot that he had ever been confused in the first place. He simply closed his eyes and indulged himself in the blessed emptiness. _Finally_ he was here, he could finally rest. But as soon as the thought came, it left. He wasn't sure what his mind meant by "finally," and he didn't care enough to try and remember. He felt completely and utterly free for the first time in his life. Cloud was almost sure he would simply dissolve into another of the billows of light around him, free to twist amongst the empty beauty of the place for all eternity.

"Who—who are you?" The voice came to him despite his willing it not to, and Cloud frowned. This newcomer sounded… familiar? Exhausted and, for some reason, disappointed, he forced himself to open his eyes.

"Aeris?" Long brown hair bound in a braid and eyes green as the lifestream met him and her name crossed his lips before he even knew what it was. She looked as surprised as he felt when he said it. He could feel the naiveté coming off of her in waves and something told him that wasn't right. She had always been strong, understanding, and much older than her years. But if that was true, why did she seem like such a child? Cloud shook his head to clear it. He didn't know this girl at all. Why did he think he did?

"Yes." She finally managed to answer, her green eyes wide. She was staring at him like he was a foreign object, and for some reason that frightened him. "Are you… like me? Are you another Cetra?"

"No." The answer was instinctual and out of his mouth before his dysfunctional mind had a chance to question it. "I'm…" What? What _was_ he anyway? Phrases flitted horrifying about his thoughts and it was all he could do not to scream. SOLDIER, puppet, hero, failure, all tried to come out his mouth at once.

"Are you ok?" This… Aeris was close enough to touch him now, and part of Cloud was desperate for her to. Any kind of human contact would be welcome here—if only to let him know he truly existed. Another part of him was terrified for the exact same reason.

"I don't know." He thought he felt no emotion as he said the words, and yet they came out as almost a sob. Why should he be upset? Or even confused? He was fine. He was an entity of this place. He had always, and would always, exist here for eternity. _Wrong,_ the emotions locked within were screaming, _you don't deserve such a reality as that._

"Who am I?" Cloud asked the girl before him and prayed that she might know. He was slowly realizing that he had forgotten, and halfway wondered if he had ever really known. Aeris quickly adopted the mothering look he'd seen her wear so often. Wait… he knew her?

"I'm not sure." She spoke clearly and calmly, completely different from the frightened child she'd been before. Aeris always had a way of being brave when others were hurting.

_She smiled at him and he couldn't do anything but watch as the demon came down from above and pierced her beating heart. His mind was too full of grief and rage at the time, but later he would realize that she knew death was on its way. She had made sure to smile for him one last time._

Cloud shuddered against the memory, wondering where the hell it had come from. Was that… _his_ memory?

"But… maybe I can help you find out?" The flower girl was so kind. She always had been, he knew. He looked at her outstretched hand and marveled at the trust she was giving him even as he recoiled from it. He had no doubts that she could help him, but after that vision he wasn't sure if he wanted her to. If Aeris said she would do it, she would. This was the same girl who had saved the planet from beyond the realm of death after all... Cloud had no idea where that thought came from, so he decided to ignore it.

The blond took a deep breath and placed his hand in Aeris's. Even here in the afterlife, she smelled like those flowers in the church. …The church…?

_He breathed deeply as the pain set in, clutching his arm and trying not to scream. The scent of Aeris's flowers filled him, and seemed to dull the pain at least a little bit. Here like this, in the church, it almost felt like she was trying to comfort him. Cloud's head hit the wood floor as his body gave in to the agony of Geostigma, and he prayed to Gaea that it would all be over soon. _

Cloud's eyes went wide, and suddenly everything was rushing back at full speed. Faces and places a thousand different things rushed forth all at once, and he thought for sure his mind would burst. He cried out and tried to block the memories as they got progressively more horrifying.

_He stood in shock, completely terrified at what he'd done. Zack's sword was lodged firmly in his hero's back and he didn't know what to think as that beautiful man fell limply forward, silver hair sticking to the still-warm blood. He had been angry. He had wanted to hurt someone to fill the gap his mother had left, but never __**never**__ had he thought he would actually do any damage at all. If he had thought it would be so… easy he never would have… oh Gaea, what had he done?_

He didn't want to remember. He _didn't want to remember_ any more, damn it! He'd _killed_ himself just to get away from these horrible memories. But the fact that he knew that only proved that it was too late. He knew who he was even if not all the holes were filled, and he loathed that reality with all his being.

"Aeris… I'm sorry." He choked as he watched her die again, his traitorous mind playing that event among others before his eyes as he struggled to remember names and faces. She didn't seem to understand, and if Cloud had not been re-living his life he might have had a better chance of realizing something was wrong.

"Why? You haven't done anything." Cloud just shook his head at the familiar answer and forced himself to come to terms with what had happened and who he really was. He'd been in this place many times before, and he knew its welcome embrace well. What nightmare awaited him in the real world? Cloud couldn't remember what had happened to land him here, but he could feel his real body just barely on the edge of his consciousness. He was still alive.

"I'm sorry." He repeated again as her face grew blurred and distant. How many times had he met her here in the lifestream? He couldn't remember, but it had been so very long. Even if he was denied from death yet _again_, suicide had been worth it just to see her face once more.

Cloud forced himself to turn away as the last of the lifestream fell into darkness. His own memories left his soul bleeding as they escaped their fragile prison, but he didn't try to stop them. If it was his fate to keep existing forever, then so be it. He would keep breathing for as long as Gaea planned on torturing him. But that didn't mean he had to live. Cloud had stopped doing _that_ long ago. He wasn't even really sure what it meant anymore…

Cloud gritted his teeth against the pain as he latched onto reality, fighting his way through the dreams and lies he'd built around himself. The sweet rest he had so longed for slipped further and further away and it took all Cloud had not to hold desperately to those last vestiges of peace. He had no place there, and he knew it. Aeris had told him so often enough. The ex-hero felt empty and hollow as his soul bound itself firmly to his body. He felt his lungs fill with air and couldn't find the energy to be upset. Even though he knew his body must not have done anything for days, he was more exhausted than he'd ever been in his life. Cloud closed his eyes again, didn't remember opening them in the first place, and didn't worry about monsters finding him here. What would they do, kill him? He hoped so, but doubted it. It seemed he wasn't the only one who would never be a memory.

Cloud smiled bitterly at the irony and fell into blessed sleep.


	8. Wakeup Call

Hello All!

Whelp, it's been a while, but I'm back. Despite copius amounts of homework and the evils that are PS 433G, (The Politics of International Economics) I have written a new chapter!

It's a bit on the short-ish side, I suppose, but I didn't want to sacrifice quality for quantity. I found myself about to add in another scene just to make the chapter longer and realized that wasn't such a good idea.

So anywho, thanks once again to all my reviewers. You have no Idea how much you keep me going. (Especially with all the shit in my life right now.)

Don't own, don't sue.

Hope you all enjoy this long-deserved chapter!

* * *

Zack felt his breath freeze in his chest as he stared into sky-blue orbs. He had spent the better part of two days praying that those eyes would open again, even when the doctors and orderlies of the med bay had tried to convince him it would never happen. He should have been overjoyed at the sight, but something seemed decidedly _wrong_.

"Cloud?" He questioned, frowning. The cadet didn't seem to hear him, just continued to stare blankly forward. "Spike?" He questioned again as he placed a hesitant hand on his friend's shoulder. Cloud didn't so much as blink. Zack's heart dropped to his stomach.

"I was afraid this might happen." Sephiroth sounded exhausted as he turned and moved back to his desk. If the circumstances were different, Zack would be worried for the General. Those cleanup missions and the stress of running things in Lazard's absence seemed to be getting to him. But because Sephiroth was talking about Cloud, Zack could only feel angry. Seph just made the whole thing sound so… flippant. Like it was an inconvenience.

"Afraid _what_ might happen?" He growled, unable to take Cloud's blank stare any longer. He whirled around to face the silver-haired man, hiding his fear with ire. Sephiroth was blameless in all of this, he knew, but he had to get these emotions out _somehow_ or he was liable to burst. Sephiroth didn't meet his gaze, just continued to riffle through the folders and pages on his desk.

"The real reason I called you here today, Fair, is because the trainee is going to need someone to take care of him." Zack didn't quite know what to do about all this. He was upset, confused, frightened and full of a million other emotions that he generally didn't have to confront. Angeal's death was still a fresh wound and having Cloud fall into… whatever this was so soon afterward was taking its toll. Everything had been building up inside him since his dreams of SOLDIER had started to fall apart. What did they mean anymore? What was it really worth, in the end? Was playing pawn to some power-hungry executive ever the way to be a hero? His dreams, friends, and sense of self seemed to be rapidly fading away. He forced back the tears of frustration and bottled his explosive emotions for Cloud's sake.

"He can't see us, can he?" Zack knew well enough how mako-poisoning worked. He set his jaw and made himself come to grips with reality. Sephiroth didn't answer.

"I would send him back to Nibelheim, but they don't exactly have the best medical services there, and Cloud will need all the help he can get." This was obviously not something Sephiroth knew how to deal with, and maybe Zack understood that but it still pissed him off to no end that the General sounded so… removed from it all. Like Cloud wasn't worth the time.

"So take him to the Hospital." Zack finally muttered, turning his gaze back to Cloud before he got too angry. He cared for the trainee, and that was precisely why he was afraid to be responsible for him. He didn't know the first thing about helping people with mako-poisoning. He was afraid he'd do something wrong and wind up getting the cadet killed. Sephiroth sighed.

"I was going to. Tseng mentioned it might not be a good idea. Hojo gets some of his favorite test subjects from the long-term ward." Zack's shoulders tensed, hands itching for the Buster Sword. That slimy, scientific, _bastard_. Every protective instinct he had was screaming at him to kill that man before he could hurt Cloud or Seph or anyone else he cared about ever again. "You're closest to him. I thought it best if you take care of him for a while." Zack swallowed and fought back tears. He didn't know what to do. Everything around him just seemed to be spiraling out of control. He could barely take care of _himself_. What the hell made Seph think he'd be capable of caring for someone else?

"I don't know the first thing about taking care of mako poisoning, and I can't be there all the time to make sure he's ok. What about SOLDIER?" Sephiroth's business-like expression did not change. Zack was seconds away from walking up and smacking it off.

"I've thought of that. Tseng's people were kind enough to leave me some equipment. It will monitor the cadet when you aren't there and send a message to your cell should anything be amiss. As for the first issue, you know how to treat a fever, do you not?" The dark-haired SOLDIER bit his cheek to keep from saying something damning to his superior officer and counted to ten.

Sephiroth took his silence as acquiescence and began informing him of the mechanics of Cloud's new accessories, and the probabilities of him waking up, and the way to contact the med-bay should he need it. Zack went along with it and didn't bother protesting. He would take care of Cloud, because if he didn't, who would? Even if it would drive him quietly insane to see those blue eyes every day and know the cadet couldn't see him, he would care for Cloud. Sephiroth didn't seem to notice his inner-pain, just kept himself removed from it all in the ultimate emotional defense. Somewhere in-between Zack's newfound resentment of the world and the General's fear of emotion, Cloud's eyes blazed with consciousness and slid silently closed again.

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Cloud did not dream. The memories finally stopped flooding his mind once they were back in their proper place. No pain slipped through the bonds of sleep, no voices whispered to him from the edge of sanity. Everything was silent and dark, better even than being cradled by the lifestream because now he had the memories to make him appreciate it. He felt really and truly relaxed for the first time in… Gaea. He didn't know. It had been so long. Cloud let himself drift there amongst the darkness, all thoughts stopped for the time being. He didn't have to worry or remember or even think. It was only when he could feel the dreams approaching on all sides, creeping forward to ensnare him and drive him slowly to the edge, that he begrudgingly forced himself back to reality.

The moment his eyes opened he was evaluating his surroundings, cataloguing potential threats and his current position before he even knew that he was awake. This inherent alertness was a byproduct of Hojo's influence and the time hunting down Sephiroth that he never really been able to shake off. He sighed as he realized that, yet again, he'd been employing the methods of Hojo's perfect weapon. He wanted to be angry, or at least indignant for his own sake—for what that madman had turned him into. But he just didn't have the energy to feel that kind of anger any more. His suicide attempt had been the final act of a dying heart, all his emotions and the remnants of his soul cascading out with the blood to soak the dry sands.

Cloud winced at the memory of his suicide, the encounter with Aeris and the knowledge that he should have been dead returning to his sleep-fogged mind. He forced himself away from those thoughts and tried to find something in the physical world to focus on. There was something soft beneath his back, something he hadn't felt in _ages_. Was that a bed? Instead of analyzing his surroundings, the warrior began to really take them in. He was in someone's bed.

His muscles protested with a spasm of pain when he tried to sit up, making him feel like he'd just gone through Hojo's first experiments all over again. Cloud gritted his teeth like he usually did and ignored it, forcing himself into an upright position. He gazed around the room to distract himself from the ache. He didn't know where the hell he was, but it wasn't familiar and it definitely wasn't in the desert. He had to assume someone picked him up in some misguided altruistic attempt to help. Damn it. If he found out who was responsible for his continued life, he was going to rip them a new one. In any case, this place definitely didn't look like any kind of lab or hospital. The clothes strewn everywhere seemed to indicate some poor fool had taken him home.

Cloud allowed himself to collapse once more against the pillows and blankets that had been piled around him, relaxing now that he knew he was in no danger of being dissected and studied. He didn't know where his sword was, but he wasn't too worried about it. Most likely, whoever it was had been unable to lift it and had left it in the desert. It was probably buried beneath a sand dune by now, but he was fairly certain he could find it again. It was a huge object and smelled strongly of mako and death. If he knew the general area he was found in, he could locate it. After that he would….

What? What was there? He couldn't just go back to Tifa. Not after the way he'd hurt her when he left. There wasn't some organization threatening the planet he could crusade against. No psycho ex-heroes to take down. So then why did the planet still insist on keeping him alive?

Cloud placed a weary palm to his forehead and tried to stem the oncoming ache. He would just have to go back, get Tsurugi, and figure out what to do after that. Maybe there was some villain waiting in the shadows somewhere that Gaea needed him to take out. Whatever. Fine. It didn't really matter to him any longer. He'd stopped living long ago, so why should he care what he did with his life? The blond snarled and let his arm drop. He was tired of thinking like this. Tired of lying down and letting the planet screw him over, but what else could he do? Usually when he couldn't stand his own thoughts anymore he just marched out and slaughtered a few monsters, but right now he wasn't sure he had the strength to stand, let alone fight.

He lay there for some immeasurable amount of time, trying to block out thoughts of his weakness and all the times he'd failed. He wished he could return to black, dreamless sleep but already he could feel the pull of memories on the edge of his mind and he knew his dreams would not be kind. Still, he was exhausted. His body had been put through hell, and was quite noisily telling him so. He was just about to fall asleep when he felt the air pressure of the room shift, the sound of a door opening echoing in the distance.

Cloud wondered who'd had the misfortune of finding him, but he forced down his paranoid instincts and convinced himself he didn't care. What did it matter who they were? He'd just tried to kill himself. Wouldn't it be hypocritical to care whether his "savior" might do some kind of harm? He was already almost certain he wasn't in some kind of lab. Anything else, he could handle.

"Cloud, I'm home!" Blue eyes flew wide open, breath frozen in his chest. That voice. It—it couldn't…. there was just no way… "Today _sucked_, thanks for asking. Seph's still got me doing paperwork." Cloud felt his mind reeling as the voice from his dreams resounded throughout the house. He wanted to get up—to shoot out of bed and see the impostor for himself, but he was paralyzed by shock. Whoever it was that had decided to torture him with his best friend's voice had certainly done their research. They had his inflection down perfectly, had even bothered to clomp around gracelessly through the other rooms exactly like _he_ would have. "Can you believe the med-bay's still mad about that? I mean, it's just a frickin' _lock_."

The impostor stepped into the room with the end of his sentence, but Cloud could not bring himself to move. He knew that if he looked, and it wasn't his best friend standing there it would be all he could do not to break down. And he knew beyond all doubt that the dark-haired SOLDIER was undeniably _dead_ and unable to come back. He'd seen the man walk off with Aeris, and was no fool. He knew what that act had meant.

"So how was your day, Spike?" Cloud fought against tears as he heard the familiar nickname, his starved heart aching to hear the voice he'd missed for so long. He wanted to close his eyes, to turn away and keep this dream alive. Because as soon as he saw whoever it was, he was going to be disappointed and the dream would die. Like this, he could pretend that his best friend was alive all over again. But his traitorous eyes did not close. He knew he couldn't afford to let this fantasy go on and distract him from whatever purpose the planet still had for him. And so his masochistic mind forced him to watch as the impostor stepped ever closer.

"Aha! Well your eyes are open today, so that's good at least!" Cloud thought he heard his heart stop. Standing there in front of him was a ghost from a dream. He looked tired, a little sad, but… it was _him._ There was no way—no _way_—to replicate a person so perfectly. "Care to share what's going on in that spiky little head of yours?" The speaker plopped down in a chair next to the bed, his movements languid like a SOLDIER's should be, and yet with that inherent clumsiness he'd always held. He was a walking paradox. Cloud had always thought that of him—had admired it. He couldn't help it. Seeing the hero breathe and talk and move as if he'd never been tortured by a sanctioned mad-man, as if he'd never been pumped full of Shinra lead and left in a wasteland to rot, was nothing short of maddening.

"Zack?" He questioned, hating how fragile his voice sounded.

And Zackary Fair, hero of the people, did his damndest not to fall out of the chair.


	9. Communications Failure

Holy Shit!

I say this for two reasons:

Firstly, because I got over TWENTY REVIEWS last chapter, and it's only been like… two days.

Secondly, because I'm updating after two days. Think of it as an apology for being so slow with the last chapter… (in other words, don't get used to it…)

So, I had so many reviews and so little time to respond between chapters that I'm probably only going to get to the people who asked questions or made critiques…. But that's the absolute best problem for an author to have! Thank you so much, guys! You have no idea how awesome you are.

And so, chapter nine begins.

Yay.

Don't own don't sue

Tell me what you think!

* * *

"Specimen exhibits… if only… experiment a failure!" The words drifted to him as if through a haze, but he couldn't particularly bring himself to care. Blinding pain was pumping through him, emanating from somewhere on his forehead. He was too drugged up to know what they'd done to him or where. All he knew was the torturous agony of this latest experiment. The specimen groaned and shifted in his almost-sleep, praying he would black out soon even though he knew he wouldn't. It was probably part of the experiment to see how his conscious mind reacted to the pain. It wouldn't be the first time they'd done such a thing.

Gaea, how had it come to this? How long had he been here in this hell with no way out? He didn't know. But he could still remember the important things. Red earth and blue skies as far as he could see, family and warmth and _stars_. There were so many stars at night, filling up the inky black sky with swaths of glittering light. He hadn't seen the night sky in such a long time. He wished he could see them one more time, but he didn't think he would. Every day in this place brought him closer to death and he knew it. He could feel it breathing down his neck, just waiting for him to finally give up.

The pain in his head increased to a crescendo and all thoughts of stars were driven from his mind. He gave a weak roar and didn't feel the blood trickle down his face, but knew all the same what was happening. He could feel it within him—a weakness that was different than before, sucking everything good and warm out of him.

"…stabilize…heart rate increasing...not going to survive!" He gritted his teeth and fought back against the urge to rest. The home that seemed so far away moments before was closer and clearer than ever—flashing before his eyes at high speed. No. No! He couldn't just go like this. He couldn't return to the lifestream without seeing his people again, without seeing his family. It was his duty to protect them, not to simply disappear! He thought of the bravery of his mother, all the things she had sacrificed in the name of his people. He imagined his grandfather spending long nights by the gate, staring down the path and waiting for someone who would never come home. It was more than he could bear. He fought against the darkness trying to smother him and forced himself to keep breathing.

He may have wanted out of this hell, but his people were proud warriors. And damn it all, he wasn't going to die lying down like this!

* * *

Zack Fair was well known amongst the Shinra community for his ability to talk the ears off of anyone and everyone he met. He was a force to be reckoned with. Even when he was being serious, the flow of words did not stop. They merely became more contained and solemn. Zack was simply a social creature. He talked to anything and everything that moved, which for some explained why he didn't seem to be afraid of Sephiroth. In fact, Zack could count the number of times he'd been speechless on one hand.

This was one of those times.

"I… you…. Cloud! But—and I thought… _Thank Gaea!_" Well. Zack's version of speechless, and the rest of the world's definition didn't exactly match up, but that wasn't the point. Cloud was looking up at him with an expression he really didn't know how to place, and he didn't care right now. The cadet was awake—not just sleeping with his eyes open. Really and truly awake, and _okay_ despite what all the doctors and the specialists and even Sephiroth had said. Zack barely managed to restrain himself from tackling the blond. Instead, he slumped against his chair to show his relief, tears of physical and emotional exhaustion threatening to make their escape. "Thank Gaea." He repeated as he tried to reign himself back in.

Cloud's strange expression hadn't changed by the time he was ready to face the world again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, that worried Zack, but he wasn't about to dwell on it now. His friend was miraculously better and he needed to make sure Cloud stayed that way. A thousand different things were racing through his head all at once, and he didn't know which one to say first. What on earth happened? What were you _thinking_? He'd spent the last five days off and on staring at the comatose cadet. All that time and he'd never thought of what to say if Cloud woke up. So instead of the profoundly emotional questions that were resounding through his soul, what came out was:

"Are you hungry?" Cloud didn't seem to hear the question and Zack felt his nerves kick in. What if he'd only hallucinated that Cloud was awake? It was only one word after all. It could have been the product of an over-exhausted mind, so—

"Zack?" There was no _way_ it was a hallucination this time, but that didn't mean he understood. Cloud's eyes were suddenly full of tears, body shaking with emotion. The dark-haired SOLDIER frowned. He swore for the billionth time that he was going to find whoever did this to the cadet, and kill them. Slowly. And if he got to kill Hojo, then so much the better.

"Hey, I'm right here. No need to cry, Spike." For some reason that just made Cloud cry harder. He reached out to brush the tears away, but the blond jerked away from his hand. Zack's frown deepened.

"I can't do this, Zack." Cloud was looking at him like the world had ended, and Zack didn't know what to do. This reaction was far too emotional to be purely from mako-poisoning. He'd read enough literature in the last few days to know that. There had to be something else.

"What happened to you?" He didn't know he'd even said the question aloud until Cloud flinched. He should have known better than to ask such a thing so soon after the cadet woke up, but he couldn't help it. It was driving him mad. He needed to have some kind of villain to direct all his anger at or he was going to implode. Cloud seemed to argue with himself before wiping the tears from his face and adopting a hard, determined expression. Zack had never seen that look on his face before. It seemed out of place somehow.

"Didn't Aeris tell you?" Zack blinked. As far as he knew, Cloud didn't even _know_ Aeris. Then his brain began to click. Five days ago he received two phone calls: one from his frantic, hysterical girlfriend and the other from Tseng, telling him to get some cadet under control. Holy shit. But how the hell…? The connection was there, but it wasn't making any sense at all. Cloud wasn't offering any more information.

"What—what are you talking about?" Zack's mind was reeling. What on Gaea could have gotten a hold of Cloud and somehow traumatized Aeris in the process? Big blue eyes, now complete with mako-glow, seemed to stare through him. Zack shuddered. He'd had enough of that in the last few days to last him a lifetime. "Cloud?" The trainee flinched again before looking away and sighing.

"I killed myself." Zack opened his mouth, and promptly closed it. He scratched the back of his neck, took a couple deep breaths, ran the sentence over in his mind and then opened his mouth again.

"_WHAT?"_ Cloud despite his earlier skittishness, didn't seem all that shocked by his reaction. The blond turned back to face him, everything about him seemed defeated.

"I would have thought it obvious. How else did you think I got here?" Zack's confusion did not lessen in any way. He'd never heard of mako-injection as a form of suicide, he couldn't see any reason for the cadet to kill himself, and he _still_ had no idea what Aeris had to do with it!

"Cloud, you tried to kill yourself with _mako_?" The trainee gave him an odd look.

"No. I fell on a sword." Zack covered his face with one hand and told himself to calm down. The image of Cloud bleeding to death didn't go away right away, but once it did he could think more clearly. What was he doing trying to argue with Cloud like this? The kid had just cleared the effects of _mako-poisoning_, which, as he knew from his research, was known to cause hallucinations. Poor Cloud had probably seen a lot of shit trapped in his own head like he was. Of _course_ he wasn't going to make sense.

"Cloud, you didn't try to kill yourself. You were mako poisoned. I've been trying to get you to wake up for—" Zack trailed off when he saw the look of pure horror on his friend's face.

"I'm not dead?" the SOLDIER just shook his head. He wanted to reach out to Cloud, to hold him until that broken look left his face, but he didn't know if that would be a good thing to do right now. The cadet wasn't quite stable, as evidenced. In fact, he should probably call the med-bay before this went any further, just to be safe.

"Look, Cloud, I'm going to go make a few phone calls. When I come back, we'll talk about this, okay?" The blond didn't give him any kind of response, just stared blankly up at the ceiling. Zack sighed as he stepped through the doorway and into the next room. He felt every minute of the last few days weighing him down. He just wanted this to be over and for Cloud to be alright. Was that too much to ask?

The phone call to the med-bay took a little longer than he thought it would. First he had to wait on the receptionist to connect his call, then he had to argue with the doctor: _Yes, I'm the one who was taking care of a mako-poisoned patient and… yes, yes, I know. Almost no chance of recovery… right, well he's awake now…. No. I am not "shitting you."… Look, can you just get your ass down here? Thanks._

It probably took him twenty minutes over all, and he was fuming by the end of it, but at least now he knew someone would be able to help Cloud. He put his happy face on, took a deep breath, stepped into the bedroom, and then reached for his cell phone again.

Cloud was nowhere in sight.

* * *

Reeve had never had any desire to go into Shinra's military program. As a child, he'd never played SOLDIER in pretend like the other boys. It had been an unending source of embarrassment to his father that he didn't like sports, or fighting, or any of the other traditional "manly" things. He'd been much more content to sit inside with his sketchbook and draw. His subject matter varied from family members to the dirty dishes. If he saw it, he drew it. Eventually, his passion had wound up being architecture, but all those years of sketching had taught Reeve something very important. They had taught him how to observe.

So when he noticed the SOLDIER literature tucked discreetly into his father's briefcase one morning, he took the pre-emptive route and applied to Midgar University. His academic records had been flawless in high school, and he was no slouch at writing essays. All it took was a few late nights, writing frantically in the near-dark so his father wouldn't catch him and always, _always_ prepared with an excuse for just in case the man did. He applied for several different scholarships and managed to get the tuition down to something he could pay on his own. He then very calmly showed his parents the acceptance letter at dinner one night, and explained to them that he'd already taken care of everything. The looks on their faces had made his father's subsequent excommunication nearly worth it.

College was not a major turning point for him. Reeve was used to pushing himself hard. It had started as some kind of misguided attempt to make his father proud when he was younger and had developed into an honest drive to do well. So when he abandoned his dreams of architecture for the more practical urban planning and really _applied_ himself, it wasn't really surprising that he managed to graduate in less than three years. After hearing about "the prodigy" of Midgar U, Shinra had given him a salary offer he couldn't refuse.

He refused it.

They gave him a better offer—all the perks of a department head. Full control over the development of Midgar, a seat in the board room, and the all the funding he would need. After _that_ little impromptu business negotiation, Reeve felt like the cat that ate the canary. Of course he knew he would actually have very little power. And the money they were allotting for any projects wasn't _nearly_ enough for him to really make a difference. He figured he could take this offer and work from there. It wasn't often a man got the chance to completely transform his hometown, after all.

Reeve had learned things over his relatively short lifetime. He was observant, manipulative, sneaky when he had to be, and had a drive that could put anyone to shame. He'd never thought about going into SOLDIER.

But he would have made a _damn_ good Turk.

"—have a proposition for you." He heard the words and his inner alarm went off. Hojo had cornered Scarlet in a corner of the department-head break room. Reeve did what he did best and pretended to be the oblivious, weak pawn that everyone thought he was. He kept pouring his coffee, and even hummed a little for good measure.

"Hojo, if this is about your crazy-ass mechanical hybrid idea again, the answer is still no. I'm not giving you _any_ of my weapons technology for grafting research." From the sounds of it, Scarlet dealt with these little "propositions" on a daily basis. Reeve made mental note of it, but didn't stop listening just yet. Something was telling him this could be important. Hojo didn't seem to be discouraged by the dismissal.

"Oh, that little project? Scarlet! How low your opinion of me is! I got a hold of the necessary weapons _ages_ ago, not that it mattered." The professor started muttering something Reeve couldn't quite make out, but the rant didn't last long. Scarlet was glaring at him with enough force to kill.

"I hope you didn't allocate those materials from _my_ department, Professor." She drug out the last word with particular distaste. Reeve stirred another packet of sugar in to his coffee.

"Schematics." Hojo brushed the topic aside with a sweep of his hand and started talking again before Scarlet could reply. "No, I had something altogether different to discuss, Director." He spat out her title with an equal malevolence. "Which involves you, me, and the late Director Lazard's position." For a moment, Reeve forgot to hum. He covered it up with a sip of his coffee, made a face purely for his audience's sake, and reached for the creamer. Scarlet and Hojo paid him no mind.

"I'm not quite sure I understand." He could tell she still wanted to protest over Hojo's illegal acquisition of her prototypes, but this new prospect was vastly more important. There was a certain tell-tale gleam in her eyes that only appeared when she was about to play the president for some major funding.

"What is SOLDIER if not a weapon in the hands of Shinra? Lazard has proven himself incompetent for the directorship. I, for one, am willing to cast my vote that control of the department be handed to Weapons Development immediately." Reeve didn't risk another glance in their direction, but he knew the way Scarlet would be smiling. He suppressed a shudder.

"How do you know the president will go for such a thing? Lazard _is_ his son, and disregarding that, Public Safety is probably the closest to SOLDIER." Hojo gave one of his creepy, low laughs.

"Lazard will soon be _dead_ to Shinra. As for that buffoon Heidegger, well… I assure you he will not be a problem." Reeve felt his mind reeling. Was Hojo implying assassination, or merely the common Shinra practice of writing AWOL as KIA? Either way, it implied a level of knowledge the head of the science department should not have had.

"What's in it for you?" Reeve found himself asking the same question. If Hojo had this much influence, why not just grab the position for himself?

"Nothing much. Simply the access I may require to certain SOLDIER research subjects." The head of Urban Development felt his breath hitch. Luckily neither of the people he was watching noticed. He didn't hear much of the remaining conversation. He knew the basis of it, and there was no need to hang around. Wiping the deep frown from his face, he made a show of finally finding the right combination of coffee, cream, and sugar and walked right past Hojo and Scarlet on his way out the door. They didn't even look at him.

The frown gradually made its return the closer he got to the safety of his own office. He was the youngest member on Shinra's board, and in the only department that didn't have some sort of military tie. His power within Shinra was already meager at best, and now without Lazard, the only director who actually took his ideas into account, his ability to secure funding was at an all time low. If Scarlet controlled SOLDIER, and Hojo had all the free-test subjects his Science department could want, well. Suffice it to say, he might as well not even come to work in the morning. He'd be a figure head, and nothing more, which was what Shinra had originally intended anyway, but he wasn't about to let it happen. Midgar was more important to him than that.

Reeve threw himself in his desk chair, pulled up the latest project on his computer, and pretended to get to work. The few in his department acted like everyone else and paid him no heed, but his mind was working a mile a minute. A Hojo-Scarlet alliance would assure him absolutely no power in Shinra. Perhaps it was time for an alliance of his own.

Reeve did not smile as his own little mini-coup unfolded. He did not alert any of the people working under him as he stood up at his regular lunch hour and wandered through the hallway. He said hello to the same people he always did and waited for the lift with no obvious sense of urgency. It was only when he was alone behind the metal doors of the elevator that he allowed himself to grin. He wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if he'd tried out for the Turks.


	10. Hourglass Grand Prix

Yay! I have power! Haha! Thank you fanfiction gods!

Hmm…. I was doing some research on final fantasy Wiki, and realized that right now, Verdot should technically be in charge, not Tseng…

Eck.

Well, I guess this is just going to have to be AU then. Before Crisis was never released in US, so I get to claim ignorance! :)

WOW! Over 100 reviews! XD I never dreamed I'd get so many! So I dropped everything and started writing, just like I promised! Hope you guys like it.

Anyone else watch ABDC? Quest crew is freakin' awesome! I always feel extremely inadequate compared to them…

So yeah. Tell me what you think!

Don't own don't sue.

Enjoy!

* * *

Cloud stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to breathe again. He had hoped, had _ached_ for this to be reality—for this to be death and for Zack to be here to greet him. Well, so much for that. He should have known better than to believe in such a fairytale.

The blond gasped as his body forced him to inhale, but he did not allow the tears to fall. He'd done enough crying, and he was half-afraid if he started, he would never stop. He couldn't lie in this room any more, listening to Zack's voice, tormented by the sound because he knew it wasn't real. Zack wasn't going to come back. Nothing short of dying and entering the lifestream would let Cloud see his best friend again, and if he was sure of anything it was that this… _place_ was not the lifestream. At first he'd thought it was. He'd taken in Zack's face, his habits, his every quirk, and wanted to believe that this was real. Cloud _knew_ Zack. No one could possibly ever replicate him to the degree that Cloud could be fooled. So if it wasn't a replica, then this had to be death.

But if this were death, why would Zack have denied it? And besides, it wasn't like he hadn't been dead before. He was always, always being sent back, but he knew well enough what the lifestream felt like. It was peace. It was warmth and light and complete and utter relief. Cloud had never felt pain any of the times he'd been in the lifestream, no matter the state his body had been in to send him there in the first place. And the lifestream didn't have beds, or chairs, or cell phones. No. This wasn't death. It was just another dream. When would it stop? A dream within a dream within a dream. What was the last "real" thing that happened? Would he wake up from all of this and be back in Tifa's bar to find that he'd never left? Or worse, what if he woke up on a surgical table in Hojo's lab to find that his whole life had been some kind of mako-induced nightmare?

Zack's voice didn't cease taunting him as it echoed in from the other room. It did nothing but remind him of all his past failures. Zack, Aeris, Sephiroth… all of them were flashing blood-covered and dying before his eyes. Cloud bit his lip until it bled and tried not to scream. He was so confused. He didn't know what was real any more, or if everything he'd lived was a lie, but he knew that he couldn't stand this dream for even one more second. He had to wake _up_ or he was going to go mad.

Whatever Zack was arguing about seemed to grow more heated, because suddenly that voice was louder than before. Cloud curled in on himself and covered his ears in a pathetic attempt to block out the noise, but the scenes replaying over and over in his mind only seemed to get more vivid. He felt the urge to tear at his eyes, to bash his head into the wall until everything stopped. Why shouldn't he? This was only a dream after all. But more than that, he wanted nothing more than to run. Every part of him was screaming at him to get away, and he knew if he didn't he was going to break.

He was shaking as he forced himself to stand, going against every nerve in his body to lift himself off the bed. He had to get out of here. Even if it was only a dream, it felt all too real to his already burdened heart. Gory scenes of indiscriminate death, he could handle. Even the nightmares of his time in Hojo's lab were manageable. But this—this tantalizing torture. Seeing what he'd lost, and knowing he could never _ever_ have it again. Cloud couldn't make himself face it. And if Zack were here, alive and whole and perfect, what if others showed up too? What if Aeris—or what if…

Cloud ran. He ignored the pain and the voices, didn't notice the green that surrounded him as he moved. All he knew was that he had to get away. He ripped open the door furthest from the one the false Zack had gone through. It turned out to be nothing but a bathroom, and Cloud was just about to turn back and fight with the window when he noticed the other door within. He tried it desperately, knowing it was probably a closet and wondering why it should be. This was a damn dream. Who said things had to be logical? But somehow he was in luck. The door led to a plain, quaint looking living room. He didn't really see that though. All he could see was the front door, and his fevered mind equated it with freedom. Cloud sprinted across the room and almost relished in the pain the movement caused. If it hurt enough, maybe he'd wake up.

But he didn't wake up, despite the agony in his legs and lungs and pretty much everywhere else. He didn't awaken and he didn't stop moving for a second because the moment he stopped was the moment it all caught up with him. His hand shot out to tear the door open, heart plummeting in his chest when he saw not the light of day, but an endless hallway. Still, Cloud didn't pause. He swore, clenched his teeth and continued his attempt to escape, frantic for an exit. It was all he could do to keep running, all his thoughts bent on nothing more than putting one foot in front of another as quickly as possible. He forced himself onward, speeding headlong into the empty corridor, pushing himself for more and more speed. Maybe if he went fast enough, he could out run the ghosts in his mind.

* * *

Sometimes Tseng really hated his job.

It wasn't the heartless decision making that got to him. Knowing he was hurting blameless people, committing wrongs in the name of a corrupt and illegitimate authority didn't bother him much. It had once, but that time was over now, or so he told himself. He'd forced himself to remember that his fellow Turks were worth more than the nameless innocents who got in the way of Shinra. It wasn't really the crazy long hours or the lack of sleep that got to him either. He could deal with that easily enough, even if sometimes he _did_ feel like he was on the verge of collapse. He didn't hate the responsibility of knowing that the lives of his agents were in his hands, because when it came down two it, _his_ hands were the only ones he could trust with such precious things. He also really didn't care that every second of every day he was betraying his very heritage by working for the Shinra. No. What Tseng hated the most about his job had always come down to the blond currently sitting in his office chair.

At first it had been because Tseng was a rookie, and Rufus was just a kid, and damn it, he hadn't been recruited to babysit! Of course, he realized now he'd been a child himself at that time, hardly over sixteen, but he didn't see it then. "Protection detail" of ten-year-old Rufus had been an affront to his pride. But that was before the president's son had eaten away at his defenses, naively endeared himself to Tseng until he was part of the family. Rufus had looked up to him for everything—not just protection, but simple things his parents should have been able to give. Acceptance, pride, even the slightest bit of acknowledgement… all of it was up to Tseng to provide. He used to think the hated how easily Rufus had gotten him to care, but now he thought he didn't mind so much.

Once Rufus had gotten under his skin, Tseng had something new to despise. Hojo's somewhat frequent kidnappings were breaking the boy, and Tseng hated that he couldn't do a damn thing about it. The boss's orders were the boss's orders, and if his superior wanted to follow the president blindly, then that was what the Turks would do. So when Tseng finally made it to the head of the department, Rufus was the first thing on his mind. He put the boy through his paces, training him like any other Turk and watched as Rufus grew cold and jaded. He hated that he'd forced such a kind soul to harden so early, but if he didn't, Hojo would. Best to toughen the blond up now then let Hojo turn him into a tortured shell.

Eventually the disappearances slowed almost to a stop. But whenever they _did_ happen, it was ten times worse than before. After a few harrowing days in the med bay, Rufus would wake up and demand to go back to work, or training, or whatever other mindless task he could think of. He'd pour himself into political intricacies or spend hours upon endless hours at the shooting range, completely ignoring the fact that he should be _in bed_! Tseng couldn't count the number of arguments he'd had with his charge over the importance of rest in field performance. Unfortunately, his training had backfired in that area. Rufus had needed to be smart—had needed to learn how to lie and lead and cajole if he was going to survive. But somehow, the student had become better than his teachers. Rufus always managed to talk Tseng into a corner, no matter how mako-ill he was, and he always did it without breaking his impenetrable mask.

And _that_ was what Tseng hated the most. Because even though he wanted Rufus to be safe—he'd _wanted_ Rufus to come out of this stronger and more worthy of leading Shinra than his father, he hadn't wanted the blond to become a Turk so entirely. Rufus was nothing but calculating every moment of every day. He never stopped to talk about the things that were bothering him or for simply a moment of normalcy. Gone was the little boy who had looked up to him six years ago for absolutely everything. Rufus didn't need him anymore; or at least liked to pretend that he didn't, despite the emotions Tseng knew had to be churning under that cold façade.

"Tseng, kindly stop pacing." Rufus broke the silence with his command, his hand pausing in its constant shuffle of files. The teen sounded every bit the Vice President he'd recently been appointed to be. "If it really bothers you _so_ much that I'm using your desk, I can always go back to my own…" Tseng glared at his charge as Rufus trailed off. The blond knew that was exactly what he didn't want. Hojo had somehow taken Rufus from his office in broad daylight, and until they figured out how, it wasn't safe for Rufus to be there. The Turk department on the other hand… well, not even Hojo would mess with the Turks.

"It's not about that and you know it," he snapped, patience wearing thin after so many days with so little sleep. Rufus sent him a look that could fell a behemoth and Tseng took a deep breath to calm himself. What was wrong with him today? He needed to get his emotions back under control. So what if Rufus was making things difficult, the teen was his _superior_, and as such, couldn't be treated as if he were still that same ten-year-old boy.

The director decided to placate his boss for the time being, and silently seated himself in the chair facing his desk. He pulled the work he'd been doing prior to Rufus's kidnapping out of its hiding place. The Vice President gave him one last look before turning back to his own work, searching for something at a fevered pace. Tseng knew the teen was looking through information that, technically, should only have been seen by himself and the president, but pretended not to notice. He was loyal to Rufus, not Shinra, and he would continue to be so. Even if the blond was an idiot when it came to taking care of himself.

"Sir, I don't suppose you would consent to working on this tomorrow?" He didn't have to look up from the page he was on to see the way Rufus's shoulders would tense, eyes flashing. Perhaps he shouldn't have been pushing things so far, but he had also seen the minute shake in Rufus's hands, the brightness in mako-treated eyes—telltale signs that the blond was in pain. "You will be able to concentrate better after the mako has had time to set in." There was no point dancing around it. Trying to get to the subject indirectly was to play Rufus's game, and then there was no way he'd win. But he couldn't say he expected the blond to flinch. Tseng's eyes narrowed.

"My schedule is not open for debate with you." Rufus didn't pause in his search. The former Wutaian wondered if this was a matter that was actually that urgent, or if Rufus was just trying to lose himself in his work. A quick survey of the files splayed out over his desk, and Tseng decided it was probably a little bit of both.

"Then perhaps I can help? Most of our information on Hojo's experiments is not kept in the usual files." Rufus almost jumped at the mention of the professor's name, but caught himself. Tseng wondered just what had happened this time around to get Rufus acting so skittish.

"Thank you, but I can handle it on my own. However the location of these extra files would be useful." Tseng resisted the urge to hit his head against the desk. He opened his mouth to suggest that two heads would be better than one, but—"Where?" Rufus commanded, his every feature demanding obedience.

"What timeframe would the experiment be in?"

"Unknown." Well. Not really surprising, he supposed.

"What did the experiment entail?"

"Not up for disclosure." Tseng frowned. Rufus may have been smart, but when it came down to it, he was really just a teenager and Tseng knew avoidance when he saw it. Rufus was searching for an experiment that had been tested on _him_, with reason to believe it had been carried out before, and obviously worry for what it might entail. The Vice President's urgency suddenly made a lot more sense.

"Most of our intelligence on Hojo has been broken up and encrypted on several disks. I'm afraid I can't help you if I don't know—" Rufus growled and Tseng knew something was _really_ wrong. Rufus hadn't lost his sarcastic composure in… quite some time.

"Tseng, just give me the first damn disk." The Turk allowed himself to stare for a moment at his boss and worry before sighing and walking around the desk to the computer. He wanted to reassure Rufus—to say that whatever the hell had been done to him, the Turks could help him sort it out. They could deal with it, and face it, and eventually have something to keep Hojo away for good. He wanted to say that it was ok for Rufus to forget that he was the Vice President sometimes and let himself feel emotion. He _wanted_ to. But it was already too late for that.

"Start with the most recent disk." Tseng suggested as he turned the monitor back on. "I was careless when you were taken and left it in my computer, so…" He trailed off as the screen came back to life, the line URGENT REPORT flashing in the Turk secret code right in the middle. Tseng clicked it and read the contents with no little trepidation.

"What happened?" Rufus asked, back to the fully professional person he always tried to be. Tseng very much wanted to scream right now, but he settled for an eye twitch.

"Sephiroth." Tseng grumbled, as though that explained everything. Rufus merely raised an eyebrow. "Apparently he took it upon himself to make sure Hojo can no longer utilize SOLDIER specimens." The blond beside him raised a hand to his temple, massaging as if to soothe away some headache.

"Fool." He spat. Tseng quite agreed with him. "Doesn't he realize Hojo will retaliate?" Companionable silence stretched on for a while, earlier conflict forgotten in the face of this new development. "When did this happen? I need to know how much time Hojo has had to plan already." Tseng looked at the encoded date and braced himself before he spoke again.

"Three days ago." Rufus cursed rather violently and threw himself out of the desk chair. His gait was still slightly erratic, and the Turk wondered why he'd said anything at all. Damn it. He was supposed to be trying to get Rufus to rest, not sending him off on another workaholic spree!

"Where are you going?" He shouted, but didn't get up to follow. He would be needed on this end now, to cover whatever damage Hojo was planning to do, and to begin forming countermeasures. He would just have to call Cissnei or Rude and have one of them look after Rufus for a while. Actually, Cissnei probably had a better chance at getting Rufus to rest then he did.

"That is none of your concern!" Tseng scowled, and waited for the sound of footsteps to fade before calling the Shuriken Turk.

Sometimes, he really, _really_ hated his job.

And it was all Rufus's fault.


	11. Escape Velocity

Arg! Why is it every time I set out to write something I have a specific plan for the chapter, and then the characters get away with me and nothing happens like I want it to?

So anywho, hope you like this chapter.

I'm inexplicably not so talkative today… might be because I'm dead tired. Heh.

Don't own don't sue

* * *

Sephiroth didn't often let himself think about what could have been. He was pragmatic, and nothing more. He had to be. Otherwise, the first fourteen years of his life would have driven him past the brink of insanity. What was the use of wondering over things that could never be? All such thinking could bring was disappointment. But unfortunately, his purely practical outlook had left him easy to box in. Hojo brought him up to be a weapon, and so he became one. He'd never once thought of defecting to Wutai, or simply running away. He could easily have gotten some small job somewhere, worked his way up in the world like a normal person. He just hadn't understood that those opportunities even existed. By the time he realized he had some level of control over his own life, Genesis and Angeal were there alongside him, and suddenly the war didn't seem so bad. Why should he leave the Shinra? Sure Hojo was still a bastard, but he had _friends_ now. He couldn't care less that the shit they were having him do was for a bad cause, he wasn't doing it for them. He was fighting and killing and putting his life on the line for the people who meant something to him—the only people who'd _ever_ meant something. But now…

Angeal and Genesis were gone. Angeal was dead and Genesis as good as. What was keeping him here in this god-forsaken place? He hated the senseless loss of life, the clean-up missions and the paperwork and the mako in his blood. He hated feeling like some kind of creature clothed in human skin, hated watching everyone either run from him or kowtow in admiration. He utterly _despised_ Hojo, and Shinra's ideals meant absolutely nothing to him.

So why was he still here?

He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and tried to find the answers. The villain from a horror film stared back at him. Dark bags had begun to outline his unnatural eyes, making them look all the more sinister. His skin was paler than should have been possible after numerous long campaigns in Wutai, hair a strange color that he'd never seen naturally duplicated on a single other person. The blood currently splattered on his clothes and face really didn't help matters. He looked every bit the monster Angeal and Genesis feared becoming.

Sephiroth buried his face in his hands and tried to banish the sound of the receptionist screaming not ten minutes before. He understood why she'd been distressed. He looked like a madman, covered in the remnants of the last cleanup mission, trudging into the lobby with Masamune still absentmindedly dragging behind him. Anyone would have screamed when confronted with a sight like that. He _knew_ that. So why did it still hurt? Why did the echo of that shout refuse to leave him still?

He didn't know how long he stayed there, bent over the sink with his head in his hands. It was a miracle that no one else came into the bathroom in that time, but he supposed it was part of the human survival instinct. Perhaps they instinctively knew a threat existed somewhere behind that door? In any case, it was a while before he was capable of thinking coherently again. He pulled himself back up to his full height, turned to leave, caught a glimpse of the mirror again, and nearly gagged. The blood of his last victim was _still_ there; a stark contrast against his moon-pale skin. Sephiroth forced himself to breathe and turned off his emotions, sending them back to the mask he'd crafted during the war. He methodically washed off the blood and forced himself not to think on it.

His mind wondered as he scrubbed, flitting from one subject to the next without words, working a mile a minute and yet thinking of nothing at all. His hands and face were raw by the time the sound of his cell phone threw him back into reality. The General looked dispassionately at his damaged skin and turned off the water before reaching for his phone. It wasn't like it mattered. Fast healing was one of the benefits of monstrosity.

"Sephiroth here." He spoke with coldly and with conviction despite the thoughts warring within. Sometimes he wished he could discard the mask and allow himself to _feel_ for once, but that was a luxury he couldn't afford. Enemies could easily take advantage of it, and then where would he be?

"We have a bit of a problem." Zack's strained voice drifted back to him over the phone and he felt his eyes narrow. It wasn't often that his fellow 1st sounded worried. If SOLDIER's resident ray of sunshine was concerned, then it was probably more than just a "bit" of a problem.

"Continue." He prodded as he pulled his gloves back on. The silence that followed was not comforting. "Zackary?" The General heard a muttered curse.

"What are the odds of a mako patient waking up again?" Sephiroth frowned. Had something happened to that cadet?

"At the moment, they stand at 1.3 million to one, but with more time—" Another curse cut through the line, along with what sounded like something crashing. "Lieutenant Fair, what's going on?"

"Damn it Seph, don't give me that Lieutenant shit again."

"Zackary…" He drug the word out, using his intimidating voice to his advantage. It had never seemed to work on Zack before, but he kept hoping that someday Zack would develop a healthy fear of his wrath.

"Alright, a million to one. So what are the odds that the patient wakes up, and is immediately capable of out running a fully trained SOLDIER 1st operative?" Silence. Sephiroth blinked. The implications of that statement were… _what_?

"You mean to tell me that Trainee Strife is _awake_?" Another crash sounded from Zack's end. Sephiroth could hear angry shouts in the background.

"Well, yeah. But we've been over that already. I think the point here is not so much that he's awake—Sorry! I'll clean it up later I promise!—as that he's delusional and loose in the Shinra building." Sephiroth took a moment to think about it. He thought of all the cases of mako-poisoning he'd seen in Hojo's lab, all the Wutai operatives who were still trapped in their own minds after ten _years_, and felt the strong urge to curse. That a _cadet_ could awaken from mako-poisoning of such insane proportions, and not only wake up, but immediately recover motor function…

"_What?_"

"Ok, Seph, this is not a time to be thinking about how Spike is defying every law in the known medical world. This is a time for—_fuck_ he's speeding up!" Sephiroth rubbed his eyes and decided to just go with it. After all, Trainee Strife was most likely a product of Hojo's experimentation, and nobody knew what kind of impossibilities that asshole was capable of. And then, he realized. Strife was probably one of Hojo's experiments, and he was running unchecked through the Shinra building. Did he _really _want one of the madman's projects loose in an area full of civilians?

"What floor are you on?" Sephiroth asked, already walking briskly to the hallway. His office was on the SOLDIER floor, and Zack's apartment was on the 50th. With any luck, they could keep it on these two floors and leave most civilians out of it.

"Aw, _damn it!_" He heard a loud bang, and now knew Zack had run into something. "Ow." The dark-haired man whined. Sephiroth could hear that he was out of breath and wondered how long this had been going on already. "Well, I just lost him. Currently we're on the fifty-ninth floor." Sephiroth swore. So much for surrounding the cadet. "_Gaea _that hurt. Remind me to slice whoever came up with the idea for the new half-lockers."

"How the hell did you manage to lose him?" He growled, stalking his way through the hall to his office. By all means, a newly injected cadet should not, in _any_ way have been faster than a fully trained SOLDIER who knew how to effectively use mako's "boosting" abilities. "And if he was so much trouble, why didn't you call me earlier?"

"Well I was gaining on him earlier! He had quite a head start, but there was a bit of a destruction trail, so I tailed him. I actually almost grabbed him on the 55th floor but then he _really_ opened up. Damn. I've never _seen_ someone so fast!" Sephiroth sighed and resisted the urge to punch the nearest object.

"Remain where you are. I'll call up a few seconds to back you up and have them shut down the elevators. He doesn't have a card key so he shouldn't be able to get into the 60th floor. Have some of your backup block the stairwell and make sure you're there when he comes back down." Even though he couldn't see the man, he could imagine the way Zack was saluting right now. Ugh. He'd definitely been spending too much time around Angeal's puppy.

"I'm on it!" Sephiroth closed his phone and fell into his desk chair before opening it again. As he dialed the appropriate commander, he wished he had just left that damn cadet to Hojo when he had the chance.

* * *

_Run._

The command was the only real conscious thought going though his mind right now, and Cloud didn't contest it. He loved running; it was something he was good at. He'd always been good at it. He ran from his enemies, friends, problems, self, fears, and guilt all the time. Running was wonderful. It was nigh on transcendental. All he had to focus on was forcing one foot in front of the other and the pounding rhythm of his beating heart and his shoes against the floor could drown out everything else. Like this, he could feel every struggling gasp of his lungs, every quiver of every straining muscle as he pushed himself for more again and again. He loved that feeling—the adrenaline rush as he broke physical barrier after physical barrier, faster and faster as the wind combed through his hair and caressed him lovingly. Physical exhaustion tugged at him with every step, but he didn't dare stop. Stopping was death—it was immersion back into the real world, and who could say if he'd ever be able to escape again?

Escape: that was what it boiled down to. Cloud knew it was cowardice but he didn't fucking _care_ anymore. He'd fought enough monsters in his life, faced himself and felt the guilt and rebuilt himself and killed himself so very many times. Didn't he get a turn to be selfish? Goddamn it! He wasn't a hero, and he didn't want to be. He wasn't good at morality, or selflessness, or any of the other things they expected him to be. He wasn't good at dealing with grief, or guilt, or sacrificing the needs of one for many. But he knew how to run, and he knew how to forget, and how to lose himself behind the physical pain.

His surroundings passed by in an incomprehensive blur as he flew through the hallways. What had begun as a desperate search for a way out had become nothing more than the primal need to keep going as though the very hounds of hell were behind him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was conscious of the people and the desks and the chairs being knocked over as he plowed through everything, but he didn't let himself think about it. He kept his eyes on the horizon, only changing direction every so often to avoid walls. All that mattered was the next stretch of hallway or the next set of stairs. He kept himself going, terrified of stopping for reasons he couldn't bring himself to remember. He pushed himself past what had ever been possible until there was nowhere else to run.

Everything came crashing back as he was forced to stop, mako-enhanced muscles finally giving out. Cloud fell into a quivering heap on the stair landing, choking on his need for air. Everything hurt ten times worse than before, his ears were ringing, body simultaneously on fire and freezing at the same time, but somehow he felt _better_. Running was cathartic in a way that nothing else was. He was still confused, and the reminder of Zack still stung, and he still _hated_ this goddamn dream. It just wasn't quite so unbearable anymore. He didn't have enough energy left for it to be unbearable.

He lay there, gasping at the top of the stairs until his vision finally stopped swimming with black dots. Cloud used a nearby wall to pull himself into a sitting position, closed his eyes, and leaned back against its cool surface. He lamented the fact that his escape had come to an end. This nightmare would have become a wonderful dream if he had simply been able to run into infinity; to wake up feeling as though, even for a little while, he'd been allowed to leave everything behind. But it hadn't, and there was no use fretting over it. Cloud pushed his emotions to the back of his mind, much easier now that the ghost of Zack wasn't taunting him, and forced himself to focus.

Any of the other times he'd been trapped in dreams it was because there was some part of himself he had to confront—some part of his extremely twisted mind that Gaea or Jenova or whatever other deity screwing with his life wanted him to see. If he was going to get out of this he was going to have to stand up and figure out what they wanted from him. Cloud didn't let himself dwell on his bitterness at being nothing more than a pawn, and forced his eyes open once more. The blond dragged himself up onto his feet, ignoring the way everything swayed as he tried to remain upright. He left one hand on the wall for balance, turned to face the door beside him, and felt the world stop.

From this perspective, the world he was in was suddenly very familiar. Everything around him was white, grey, or metallic. Large neatly painted numbers to his right decried this as the 69th floor and an annoyingly recognizable slot beside the door flashed red at him. He knew _exactly_ where he was. But why in Gaea's name would he dream of _this_ place? Of all things? The only time he'd been on the sixty ninth floor had been when Sephiroth…

"Spike?" The voice echoed up to him from quite a few floors down and Cloud's jaw clenched. His grip on his emotions was already tenuous at best right now. He didn't think he could face that person right now and still have the will to do whatever it was the planet wanted him to do this time.

Cloud had spent a lot of time after the fall of Midgar going though the remains of the Shinra building. Who knew if one of Hojo's monstrosities hadn't been left behind? Of course, he'd somehow managed to miss the existence of Deepground despite his careful combing through every floor still intact, but he'd learned a few things. His warrior's memory had left him with a perfect map of the dratted building, and he'd watched Reno short-circuit enough of these damn locks to know how to do it himself

He acted quickly, smashing one mako-enhanced fist into the hard plastic of the lock and watching with satisfaction as it shattered. Footsteps pounded up the stairwell, still a few floors back, but gaining as he pulled and twisted the right wires. He could feel the panic beginning to set in as nothing happened, worried that the dream would not follow the logic of real life as his pursuer grew closer and closer, but then the door was open and Cloud was trying once more to escape. He couldn't manage his earlier run, could barely keep himself on his feet. He wouldn't be able to outrun the SOLDIER. He would have to hide.

Cloud winced with each shaky step, but pulled himself into the nearest room. His memory served him well and soon he was in the Shinra Executive Break room. Low voices carried from the offices nearby, but he paid them no mind. All that mattered was getting away from the phantom behind him. The blond searched frantically for a place to hide, knowing that he was going to collapse at any second.

"Holy shit!" the curse was no louder than the mumblings of others working here, but somehow it carried to Cloud above everything else. He didn't think. He gathered every last bit of strength he had and _pushed_ off the ground, throwing himself at the nearest drink machine. His hands gripped the edges, arms shaking as he pulled himself to the top. The damn thing wobbled beneath him as he worked and for a moment he thought it would tip over, but it didn't. Cloud didn't allow himself to stop for a break. He crawled along the tops of the machines, dragging himself towards the corner where the tallest machine stood. He'd only just managed to curl up in the shadow where walls and machine met when the man he was trying to avoid burst into the room.

Zack was an amazing SOLDIER. He was observant, level headed, and resourceful despite all appearances. If he were his usual self, he would have spotted Cloud in a second. He would have smelled the mako if nothing else. But the Zack who nearly ran into the sliding door in his effort to get to Cloud was not his usual self. Despite the pain coursing through him and the exhaustion pulling at him, Cloud could see how flustered his best friend was. Zack didn't give the room more than a cursory glance before running to the next. It hurt to see the SOLDIER so worried, but Cloud selfishly couldn't bring himself to face him. What did it matter? It was only a dream anyway.

For a long while after Zack had already left, he sat there, whole body tense and poised to run even if he had no strength to do so. Slowly, the adrenaline that had been keeping him going began to fade. He was just about to slip out of consciousness when the door slid open once more. Cloud pushed all thoughts of sleep from his mind, fought against the lead weights holding his eyes closed. He'd only barely just managed to open them when he heard a shocked gasp. He'd been spotted. Cloud groaned and focused on the situation, willing his vision to cooperate only to see—

"Reeve?"


	12. Please Insert Reality Here

YAY! God, finally got this chapter out. Sheesh. Show me to make promises about a semi-regular updating schedule, right?

So yeah, sorry that took so long. RL got in the way, you know how it is.

I only hope this chapter wound up being worth the wait! :) Tell me what you think. I'm not 100 percent committed to this direction yet, so… you think you've got some constructive (or even destructive. Hey, I take what I can get!) criticism, please drop a review!

Don't own don't sue.

Enjoy! (I hope!)

* * *

The church was silent despite the two people within, a picturesque scene of tranquility here in the slums of Midgar. Light filtered in through shattered windows to bathe the white flowers somehow growing in this dump of a city. Careworn pews made of warm wood seemed to radiate with reflected light; everything glowed like something out of a dream. The flower girl was knelt in prayer at the edge of her beloved plants, her strange materia glistening and making it look almost like she had a halo. All in all it was probably the most beautiful sight one could hope to find in Midgar.

Reno absolutely hated it.

It was his week to watch the ancient-chick. It wasn't an assignment he ever particularly liked, but at least it usually posed _some_ kind of amusement. The brown-haired girl made it a pastime to give the Turks the slip amidst the ins and outs of the Midgar Slums. Reno had to admit he enjoyed a good chase, so babysitting Aeris wasn't usually so bad. But this week it really, really sucked. He didn't know what caused it, but for whatever reason the ancient hadn't left her precious church except to eat and sleep for the last five days. All she did all day was kneel by the flowers and—well he didn't know. Maybe she was talking to the planet or something. He didn't really care. All he knew was that it was freaking _boring_.

Reno glared at the pew in front of him and kicked it for good measure. Gaea. He hated this place! It was so… pure. It was like a representation of everything he wasn't—everything he'd never been able to have. Call him bitter or jealous, he didn't care. The fact of the matter was; being in this _damn_ church pissed him off. It always made him feel like he wasn't good enough to be there, like he didn't belong. And who could argue? What business did a man who'd sold his soul to Shinra and washed his hands in the blood of innocents have in a church? Besides that, there was the fact that he'd had nothing to do but stare at that silly ancient girl for the last five days, with no hope of anything interesting happening. Even if he hadn't hated the church before, he would have hated it now purely for boredom's sake.

To make it even worse, he knew about all the craziness going down at headquarters right now. A cadet had shown up suddenly mako-poisoned in the barracks, with SOLDIER and the Turks both none-the-wiser over what the hell happened. Lazard was still AWOL, Hojo uncharacteristically quiet, and a whole lot of power was up for grabs in the Shinra Hierarchy. Take all that and what do you get? Reno wasn't really sure what it all added up to but he was certain it was all somehow related. There was some _weird_ shit going down in the Shinra building right now, and Reno was stuck here. Babysitting.

The redhead sighed, blew a few strands of hair out of his eyes, and resigned himself to the rest of the afternoon. At least there were only two days left until the end of the week. And then…

Perhaps it was time he go on a mission of his own.

* * *

Reeve was beginning to get just a little frustrated. His plans had started out well enough. Everything had practically mapped itself out for him and within an hour he had the perfect plan for undermining Hojo. All he needed to do was form his alliances, manipulate a few fools, keep up his naïve act, and everything would fall into place.

He'd started off by going to make some phone calls on his lunch hour. This was not unusual, as he often made calls during lunch break to some contractor or another. In order to avoid the noise of his fellow employees, most of these calls he made from the 65th floor, where there was a scale model of Midgar. A large number of his coworkers found the floor "creepy" but Reeve loved it. It was quiet, and served perfectly to remind him of the reason he came to work every day. There was little chance of anyone going there, especially during break, and he _certainly_ didn't have to worry about any wayward scientists coming in and eavesdropping. He stepped into the large room with the to-scale model of Midgar and pulled out his phone, ready to begin his counter-plot.

He was sorely disappointed. There were three main points most integral to the plan: Sephiroth, Tseng, and Heidegger. He'd tried contacting the pseudo-director of SOLDIER first, but after being directed to several different numbers he somehow found himself back on the phone with the first SOLDIER secretary he'd talked to.

"Sorry," she'd said, though she didn't really sound it. He could just picture her upturned nose and perfectly manicured nails. "There's a bit of a situation right now. The General can't afford to waste his time on his fanclub." Honestly! Where did Shinra get these self-righteous people? He made a mental note to look at the employee time-tables later and figure out who the hell he'd been insulted by before writing her up.

"Hmm. That's fine. Can you tell him the Director of Urban Development called then?" He bit out, taking a small amount of satisfaction in the awkward silence following. Ha. Well at least she knew she'd screwed up.

"Y—yes of course! I'll tell him you called director." Reeve had grumbled a little over the delay in phase one as he closed his phone, but no matter. He had other plans to put in motion, and so his call to Sephiroth would just have to be put off.

Next he'd tried the Turks. Observation had proven Tseng to be a reasonable sort of man, and he was sure he could convince the Turk of the merits of his plot. If not, he had a few things up his sleeve for just in case. But he didn't get the chance. His call was received by another, much kinder, secretary. The poor woman sounded more than a little frazzled, and told him Tseng and the other Turks had been running in and out all day. Reeve frowned. If SOLDIER and the Turks were both so busy with something, then it was probably important.

So after being put off twice, he was more than a little irritated. Heidegger was still an important piece, but without knowing he had the support of the other two it wouldn't be an intelligent move to include the head of Public Safety yet. _That_ might backfire and allow Hojo to manipulate his own plan against him. He was going to have to wait another day, but who knew what progress Hojo might make in his own plan by then?

Reeve looked at his watch and groaned. His little impromptu game of phone tag had taken longer than he'd thought. Lunch hour had ended half an hour ago. Most of the wait had occurred waiting for someone to pick up in the SOLDIER department, and he'd been so anxious to begin he hadn't been watching the clock properly… Ah well. He would just have to stop in the break room for a quick snack instead of his usual lunch.

He waited by the elevators for about five minutes before he realized they weren't going to work. The director resisted the childish urge to kick the damn things. Instead he turned on his heel and marched toward the stairs. Four flights of stairs later and he was staring at the obviously tampered with key-card receptor and wondering what the hell happened. He remained where he was, glaring at the broken technology, before deciding it must have been some kind of maintenance thing and moving through the now unlocked door.

In retrospect, this seemed like a very dumb thing to do. But he had already been faced with annoying secretaries, a malfunctioning elevator, four flights of stairs, the current stagnation of his plan, and a lack of lunch. Right now, he didn't really _care_ if there was a psycho capable of hotwiring the key-card locks on the loose. He was going to have _something _go right, damn it!Even if it was only a bag of chips and a soda.

However, he noticed the SOLDIER operatives in the halls as he walked to the break room, and his mind began to tick. Was _this_ what SOLDIER and the Turks were so busy with? He put on his naïve pawn expression as he passed the SOLDIER second outside the break room door and wondered what could possibly have happened. Had there been an assassination attempt on the president? This floor _was_ connected to the President's floor, after all. It was probably the easiest point of entry for an assassin to take. But he would surely have heard of such a thing by now, right? The director frowned and turned to his favorite machine, only to stop dead.

Reeve had seen a lot of things in his life. Growing up in the city of Midgar meant that you saw some strange people. Rebels, Shinra forces, Wutai refugees…he'd seen it all. Working in the same building has Hojo necessitated the occasional shock. Sometimes if you were unlucky enough, specimens would be brought in via the main elevators. And Hojo liked to work with some _weird _shit. He liked to think he was pretty well versed in the world, and that there wasn't much that could surprise him.

But the freaky glowing eyes atop the vending machine, the person curled up there, and the voice speaking his name might have done the trick.

* * *

Cloud tried to figure out a reason for Reeve to be here, but his sluggish mind was drawing up a blank. Reeve was one of his close friends, to be sure, but the man wasn't exactly the center of his psyche. Usually these dreams focused on Aeris, Zack or—well it focused on the people and events that had led to his current suicidal, screwed up state. Reeve wasn't one of those. He tried to come up with some kind of quality Reeve could represent—some kind of _something_ that could explain his purpose here. But his thought process was on the fritz; Cloud was mentally and physically exhausted. He could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone ponder the reasoning of his innermost self.

The fact that he was so tired was strange in itself. This dream was just too realistic. So far, every natural law of physics and chemistry had still applied in this place, which was completely unlike any dream he'd had before. Logic wasn't a key figure in his hallucinations, planet induced ones or no. In fact, the lifestream delusions were usually the strangest ones. Voices continually echoed, surroundings pervaded by wispy green. Gravity never seemed to matter much in those dreams. A few times, there had even been other versions of himself scattered throughout the green landscape, suffering as he did. Not so this time. If it hadn't been for Zack and the Shinra Building, he wouldn't have thought this was a dream at all. _That_ scared him. Because what if—what _if_—

"Who are you?" The question caught him completely off guard, and Cloud felt his breath stop. Reeve was looking at him like something foreign, something that didn't belong here, and he didn't know how to deal with that.

"I—" Cloud tried to think of something, anything to say but his mind was drawing a blank. Was this the test Gaea so wanted him to go through? Was he supposed to answer that question? He shook with exhaustion, no closer to the answer now than he had been at any time before. He didn't know who the hell he was. He'd like to think he never would, because something told him the truth wouldn't be pretty. The commissioner of the WRO didn't seem to share his sentiment. Cloud watched his friend's face darken, brow creasing with suspicion. The blond felt something ache to see a close friend look at him that way.

"Reeve?" He cursed himself for sounding so weak, but truth be told, it was all he could do to hold back the tears right now. He'd been tortured with visions of the ones he loved, _knew _he could never see them again. Now the dear ones he _could_ see were being taken away. And all Cloud wanted to do was to fade from existence. Was death really so much to ask?

"Just because you know my name doesn't make you any less a threat." Absorbed in his thoughts, it took Cloud a while to realize his friend was talking. The world was coming to him delayed and through a haze. Reeve's words weren't quite registering, and _why_ was Reeve looking at him so hatefully? It hurt. "Unless you can give me one good reason not to within the next five seconds, there's a SOLDIER right outside this door who I'm sure would love to know where you are."

Cloud didn't know quite what to do with himself. He felt like laughing and crying all at once. Laughing because Reeve had just asked him to prove he wasn't a threat, and how the hell was he supposed to do that? Hojo and Gaea and the whole damn world had made _sure_ he was a threat. He had become the strongest man in existence—had to because to do otherwise would mean certain death and the end of the planet. He was a man trained for nothing else but to kill. So when is anyone like that ever _not_ a threat? All the same, he was just so frustrated with this—this—whatever it was. It was only a damn dream, and he was stuck here, and he'd been running from ghosts and memories for what felt like forever. If Reeve called for help and Zack was the one to come through the door… Cloud knew he would break down.

"One," Reeve counted off below his breath. "Two." Cloud looked hazily into the hostile eyes of his once-friend and knew the man was serious. "Three." His mind raced for something, anything that could make Reeve stop. This wasn't just a dream any longer; this was a matter of life and death. "Four." He watched Reeve take one more breath, saw the decision already made, muscles tensing—

"Cait Sith's megaphone is in one of the lockers on the 64th floor." The sentence left him in a rush, was hardly audible and didn't make much sense at all. Why the hell had he said _that_? Still, he'd managed to keep Reeve from shouting for help. The commissioner was staring at him once more, eyes wide.

"Who _are_ you?!" Cloud had known him long enough to see the calculating mind beneath Reeve's flabbergasted façade. He felt rather stupid. How on earth would bringing up something he shouldn't have known about prove him harmless? If anything, it only made him more dangerous, especially in Reeve's eyes. The man was nearly a Turk, and they always were smart enough to know that the real danger lay in information. "I don't know where the hell you heard about my prototype, I can assure you—"

"Prototype?" He interrupted before he could stop himself. Screw it. Who cared anymore. He was _exhausted_. Everything hurt, and he was just a few seconds short of passing out. It was understandable that the brain to mouth filter was not working at the moment.

"Yes. _Prototype_. I will ask you _one_ more time; who are you?" The hero tried to pick himself up and get a better view of the commissioner. Gaea, this just wasn't making sense!

"Cait's a prototype." He mumbled to himself, attempting to get some kind of grasp on the dream he was in. "Reeve, why am I here?" He watched the dream-friend carefully as he waited for an answer, knew how much he must look like a lunatic, but did it really matter? Still, as he studied the dark-haired man before him, he began to realize that something was off. As WRO commissioner, Reeve had always seemed strained, stretched beyond his limits somehow. Worry lines and crow's feet had worked their way onto his face as the years passed, there to match the dark bags constantly lining his eyes. But this dream… Reeve didn't look like he ever had, not since Cloud had known him.

"Oh-kay." Reeve drew the word out, looking at him with some kind of combination of fear, confusion and worry. His hand moved slowly to reach into his pocket and pull out a cell phone. Cloud hated the way his former friend was treating him like some kind of feral animal, ready to spring. He just wanted to know what was _going on_ and then he wanted to sleep. Preferably forever. "I'm going to call the General, and—" Cloud moaned, curling in on himself. Gaea, he should have known. The tears threatened to make their escape as his tired, aching body decided to give in. Sephiroth was here. Of course. What else could Gaea want with him?

"Oh! Director!" A voice Cloud knew all too well bounded in to the room. Cloud heard the accompanying, clomping gait and knew exactly who it was. "Have you a seen a—oh." Zack must have seen him, or Reeve must have pointed out the curled up ball of yellow hair and shaking limbs above the drink machine, but that wasn't what was bothering him at the moment. What was confusing was that Zack _knew_ Reeve, which he supposed was possible although he'd never really connected those two parts of his life, and that he'd called the commissioner _director_.

Cloud 's mind sluggishly stumbled through the facts he'd been given. He was in the Shinra Building. Zack and S—the General were still alive. Reeve was director, didn't know who he was and Cait Sith was still a prototype. All of these things were in relative chronological agreement. Reeve looked young, younger than Cloud had ever seen him. Was it possible to contrive younger versions of people you knew in dreams? Because other than the whole "looking younger" thing, this Reeve acted exactly as the real one would have. The laws of physics and chemistry and reality appeared to be in order; the fact that his body was throbbing with pain and close to collapse was proof enough of that. If it weren't for the fact that this was impossible, he might have thought it was real.

Cloud choked.

"Hey, Spike." His best friend—dead! His mind tried to remind him, but that rational part of himself was quickly fading behind the throb of unending pain and confusion—was speaking softly somewhere near his ear. He didn't remember Zack finding something to stand on, but knew the SOLDIER must have. Cloud uncurled from his defensive position, inch by agonizing inch until he could see the near-violet eyes looking fretfully back at him. Now that he was looking for it, Zack seemed younger too. SOLDIERs didn't age, couldn't, but after Hojo had gotten a hold of them both, Zack had been different. Stronger and more fragile all at once, tired, far quieter, and more serious. This one's gaze was nowhere near naïve, but that horror, the complete and total brokenness and acceptance of death, wasn't there.

"Is this real?" Cloud let the question escape; focusing all of himself on the answer and deciding whatever Zack said next would determine his reality. He was just _so_ tired. He'd tried to kill himself a short while ago, or at least he thought he had, so what should he care whether this was real or not? Maybe the answer was to simply enjoy seeing his friends like this: young and unharmed by destruction. So if Zack said it was real—

"Yeah, Cloud. I promise." Then that was good enough. Cloud smiled, or tired to. A tiny, watery, satisfied grin, and then the world went black.


	13. General Confusion

Hey guys!

Sorry this took so long to get out. I got into finals and was promptly eaten… Can't promise updates will be frequent. I'm going to Japan this summer, and thus will have to work my Ass off for traveling money. :)

Can't say I'm too happy with this chapter. It just didn't feel right. Don't be supprised if it winds up being re-written eventually. Course, I say that, then I never do anything…

As always, constructive criticism appreciated. :) I know I didn't get to some reviews last time, but I love them all dearly. It was a PM that wound up inspiring me to even write this chapter! So please review.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

* * *

He woke up, and everything was wrong.

Well, perhaps the fact that he'd woken up was wrong in itself. He should have died that time, thought that he had, but apparently not. Here he was, awake. But everything hurt. His head still felt like someone had split it in two. His body ached as it almost constantly had since he'd been forced to come to this place. He could feel steel beneath his feet instead of solid, red earth. He could hear muffled screams and cold calculating voices instead of the wind blowing through the Canyon. And he could see… There was something very wrong with what he could see.

He tried to focus on the swimming world around him, and found it a dizzying task. This felt strange. It was _wrong_. It wasn't the new glass cage they'd put him in, or the unfamiliar lab he was now inhibiting. There was something wrong with the way he was seeing. He tried to feel his face with a shaking paw, but his muscles refused to obey. He couldn't do anything more than lie there, waiting to pass out again and trying to understand why everything looked so _strange_.

"…it for…ay. Lights…t." The voices from outside drifted strangely to this glass prison and he wondered what was going on. The White Coats were filing out of the room, hitting switches as they left. This was odd. They'd never done this before. Usually, the lab was running all the time. He often wondered if that bastard scientist had discovered a way to make sleep obsolete.

The last White Coat left, and with him the last light turned out. The only lights still on in the room were those in the specimen tanks, gently filling the dark lab with their fluorescent glow. It was no use trying to look out there anymore, he decided. It was far too dark out there for him to see anything with this specimen light messing up his night vision. He—

He tensed as he caught sight of his pitiful reflection in the glass, the reason for the wrongness of his sight and the sharp, unyielding pain in his skull becoming immediately apparent. He stared into the make-shift mirror, frozen by shock. One wide eye stared silently back.

* * *

"How the hell was I supposed to know?" Zack mumbled defiantly as Sephiroth gave him his best glare. They were currently standing in the med-bay waiting for an okay from one of the doctors there. After hours of sending out guard teams and searching empty floors, he'd gotten the call from Zack saying that they'd finally caught Strife. He'd ordered the man to take his catch to be checked over, though Zack had protested. Sephiroth had come down here to give his subordinate a dressing down, but somehow he'd wound up just waiting here alongside the person he'd intended to lecture.

Sephiroth had to admit that it wasn't really fair to pin the blame for all this on his fellow SOLDIER but he really couldn't help it. He was tired both physically and mentally, he could feel the beginnings of a migraine, and he'd just spent the last few hours trying to track down a _cadet_ who by no means should have even been able to wake up! Not only had the blond done the impossible and defied all known laws of medicine, he'd also managed to circumvent top-of-the-line security measures and outrun his men for _much_ longer than he should have been able to.

His head pounded forebodingly.

"You said he was acting delusional. Why on earth did you leave him in that room alone, knowing there was another exit?" Zack huffed defiantly, but had the decency to look at least a little guilty.

"Well, I kind of thought it was a miracle that he was even _awake_. I didn't think to worry about him standing up and _running _like a bat out of hell!" Sephiroth sighed and conceded defeat by slumping into a nearby chair. It didn't take long for Zack to follow his example.

"I apologize Zackary. It has been a very long day." The dark-haired man snorted.

"It's been a long _week_." They sat there in comfortable silence for a while, both allowing themselves a moment of self-pity. Sephiroth felt out of control for the first time in a long time. His two best friends were gone or dead, he wasn't sure which and he'd never really gotten the time to grieve. Instead he'd been trapped in a world of paper-work and defensive maneuvers, trying to keep the clones of his once-friend from doing too much damage. And for what? He wasn't sure he really wanted to be protecting this company any more anyway. They were gone, so what was the use in staying?

"You know what we need?" It took him a moment for the voice to register, but when it did, Sephiroth forced himself to stop thinking down that road. He was a dog of Shinra, and that was what he'd stay. "We need to go out for a drink." That stupid grin was on his subordinate's face and Sephiroth frowned, though some part of him felt a bit better. Seeing Zack upset was just… wrong somehow. "Kick back a few shots, pick up some chicks…" The General rolled his eyes.

"You're being ridiculous."

"Okay, maybe not the chicks. Aeris would kill me for that. But we can still go get shit-faced!" Sephiroth continued to stare with a blank face. "Yes, I _know_ we can't actually get drunk but we can still pretend that we are! Civilians won't know the difference."

"Why in Gaea's name would I want to _act_ drunk?" Zack looked at him with a mock-pout for a few moments before throwing his hands up in the air.

"I give up. You win. Thanks for crushing all my dreams."

"Your dreams consist of nothing more than play-acting at inebriation?" Sephiroth couldn't help but feel grateful as he watched the younger man pretend to get worked up. He knew that this was some kind of twisted attempt to cheer him up. Zack was always there to keep him from falling to far into his own thoughts; although he usually found that fact annoying.

"Hey! I'll have you know, my dreams are very—"

"Excuse me, I'd hate to interrupt, but are you waiting for information on Mr. Strife?" Both men immediately stood back up, adopting their professional SOLDIER 1st personas at the drop of a hat.

"Is he alright?" Sephiroth could sense the desperateness and worry his friend had been fighting thrumming through Zack's body once more. He shook his head. Why the idiot got so emotionally involved with everything was beyond him. He had no idea how that hyper _child_ had made it through the Wutai war with his sanity intact…

…never mind. That explained a lot.

"I—" The doctor was trying to be polite, but Sephiroth could almost taste her fear on the air. He tried not to think too much about it, though he supposed it wasn't unwarranted. Seeing two SOLDIER firsts fully armed, faces grim was probably not something one wanted to meet alone. "That's just it. Other than severe exhaustion and the residual effects of mako-dosing, he seems to be perfectly fine." Sephiroth frowned. He felt about as uneasy as the doctor looked. This didn't make _any_ sense at all.

"So, there's no reason to keep him here, then?" Zack had been itching to get his friend out of here since the moment they'd stepped foot inside, Sephiroth knew. He couldn't blame the dark-haired man. The second Hojo heard about a person impervious to mako-poisoning, threat or no, he'd be trying to get the cadet in his oily clutches. Sephiroth's head pounded harder. This would have been so much easier if they could have just kept it quiet.

"I suppose not." The doctor had to leap out of the way when Zack rushed forward, that ok all he needed to get Cloud out. The General shook his head at his subordinate's eagerness before turning back to the woman.

"I trust you will keep this… discreet?" He murmured with danger in his voice, pinning her with an immovable emerald stare. She turned a shade of white almost as pale as the walls around them before nodding. Zack barged back to the room in that moment, barely sparing him a glance as he stormed through the med-bay exit. Sephiroth was quick to follow.

"Marissa! Take all record of Cloud Strife off today's files." He heard the woman shout as soon as he'd left the room. It didn't mean Hojo wouldn't still find out, but it was a start at least. Now he had to return to his office and make a few calls. The Turks would need to know what had gone on. Arrangements had to be made for just _what_ Strife would be doing once he recovered. He had to come up with some kind of plan for keeping Zack's friend away from Hojo, and…

Sephiroth hit the up button on the elevator with unnecessary force and watched dispassionately as the damn thing cracked. _Gaea_ but his head hurt.

* * *

Aeris sighed as she pulled her consciousness from the lifestream once more, head aching with the effort of staving off the Cetra's collective thoughts. She'd been coming here all week, searching for clues as to what had blackened Gaea's life-blood. The lifestream itself seemed fine, but the Cetra and even the echo of the planet itself were tainted beyond redemption. It just didn't make sense. Why should she feel the planet die? Why should the Cetra, who had been a constant and positive, if incomprehensible, force in her life, suddenly become so bitter? It was as if they had been completely exchanged for some other force completely foreign from the voice she had grown up with.

Her daily searches hadn't turned up much. All she could do was attempt to talk to the Cetra, but that never turned out well. They either ignored her or overwhelmed her with their buzzing consciousness. Trying to contact the planet directly wasn't much help either; she almost seemed to get the impression that it was laughing at her. The lifestream was supportive of her efforts, and had saved her from the Cetra on more than one occasion, but it was incapable of communication. The only clue she'd found all week was that strange man—the one who'd known her name and looked so very lost.

That meeting… she didn't know quite what to think of it. At first she had thought he was one of the Ghosts—echoes of human consciousness left behind by people with business unfinished. They were uncommon, but some strong-willed people could maintain their being after death. Still, those creatures were only barely human, usually didn't last long and definitely still a part of the lifestream. The person she'd seen was too vivid and broken to be a part of the lifestream. It had swirled around him in a protective way, shielding him from the Cetra just as it shielded Aeris. She had hoped… Aeris had been told she was the last of her kind for as long as she could remember. It would have been nice to know there was another out there like her to carry the burden of slow extinction, but the stranger had fervently denied any connection with her people.

The flower-girl's only other theory was that he was one of the Lost Ones. She had only seen two in her lifetime. One was a man in a SOLDIER uniform, trapped in a battle of the Wutai war, wandering the Lifestream and fighting enemies that only he could see. She'd tried to talk to him, but it was like he couldn't even see her. The other was only a child, naked and covered in scars. Around his neck hung the specimen tags that marked it as one of Hojo's monstrosities. Aeris remembered feeling sick as she watched the boy scream about needles and gloved hands—all the things she herself had remembered fearing in that lab. More than anything she had wanted to comfort that child, but it was no use. The Lost Ones were victims of too-much exposure to the lifestream, trapped in their own minds and unable to escape. Sometimes, her mother had said, you could talk to them, but only if they wanted to be saved. If the outside world was too terrifying, the mind might never heal.

This one though… he could see her. Not only that, but he knew her name. It was strange to be called so familiarly by a person she'd never seen before in her life, though some aching part of her insisted that he was familiar. There was an itch in the back of her mind that said she knew him too; tried to get her to remember something that had never happened in the first place. When he looked at her with those lost eyes she just—her heart told her it shouldn't be this way. That he was never meant to hurt like this. That it wasn't fair, that it was unjustifiably and irrevocably _wrong,_ and how dare they use him like this! But she didn't have the slightest clue as to what those thoughts meant.

It was confusing beyond all belief. She had actually tried projecting an image of him to the Cetra in a last-ditch attempt to get some information. The resulting swarm of impressions and fragmented memories had torn into her mind and thrown her straight out of the Lifestream. She'd woken up screaming with a very confused Turk holding her down to keep her from flailing. It was obvious from the Cetra's reaction that her blond stranger had _something_ to do with all this. She just had no idea in hell, even after a _week_ of searching, what that could be.

A cheerful tune interrupted her frustrated thoughts and Aeris allowed herself to smile. There was only one person who ever called her, even though he hadn't been calling as often lately.

"Yes Zack?" She asked, grin evident in the lilt of her voice. Somewhere in the back of the church her "guardian angel" groaned. It was still the red-head today. She felt sorry for him. It must have been awfully boring to have to sit here all day and watch her pray.

"Hey, Baby! What's happening?" Zack's greeting was exuberant as usual, but there was something a bit off about it. Aeris's smile gained a tinge of sadness. Something had been wearing on him since his mentor died, and it only seemed to be getting worse of late. She supposed having to take care of his sick friend didn't really help much. He'd sounded really worked up about it when he mentioned it the other day on the phone.

"Oh, you know. The usual. Flowers growing, carts needing to be built…." Zack's laugh sounded strained. Aeris frowned. "Is something wrong?" Her boyfriend sighed. That alone made it obvious; something was _really_ wrong. He would never have admitted it so easily otherwise.

"Well it's just—you know. I'm worried about stuff. It's stupid." He forced himself to try and laugh, but only wound up sounding bitter. Aeris hated to hear him sound like that. It was like watching a cat bark or a bird croak: unnatural. He was made to be sunshine and smiles, and she wanted to be able to protect him from anything that could change that. He wasn't meant to hurt.

"It's not stupid if it's worrying you, Zack. What's wrong?" Silence met her question and Aeris's frown deepened. Zack told her everything. Either this was something that had hurt him so badly, he wouldn't say anything about it, or it was something he couldn't talk about due to Shinra confidentiality. Should she continue asking for information and risk him shutting her out? Aeris gnawed her lip before deciding to press in as innocent a way as possible. "Is your friend ok?"

"My friend?" Zack sounded preoccupied.

"Yes. The sick one you were taking care of?"

"Oh. Yeah, he's—actually Aeris, do you know anyone named Cloud Strife?" Aeris blinked at the rather random change in subject. His tone had gone from depressed to confused in an instant. Well… confused was an improvement she supposed.

"No. Should I?" Zack mumbled something to himself, and Aeris couldn't suppress the surge of fondness she felt for him. That man's mouth seemed to be always running. He couldn't think silently if he tried.

"No, I guess not. It's just… he mentioned you the other day." The flower-girl paused for a moment to re-search her memory and make sure but…

"I can't think of anyone named Cloud." As she said the words, she felt as ashamed as if she had just denied the existence of Gaea. Something strange and foreign within insisted that she _did_ know this person. "Maybe if you told me what he looks like?"

"He's kinda on the small side. Blond, spiked up hair and eyes bluer than anything you've ever seen." The cell phone slipped from Aeris's fingers and clattered noisily to the wood floor. It couldn't possibly—there was no way!

"—ris?" Her boyfriend's voice resounded quietly from the device and she hurried to pick it back up again.

"Zack, what was your friend sick with." She could just see the way he was opening and closing his mouth, searching for something to say.

"I can't—that's not really something I can—"

"Was it mako poisoning?" This time, the silence proved her right. She glanced at the Turk standing in the back of the church. He had his back turned to her, but his body was tense. She knew he must be listening. She couldn't tell Zack anything right now without the chance that it might get back to Hojo. She'd have to see him face to face.

"How…?"

"Hey, don't you owe me a date? Why don't you take me out to dinner when you're done with work tomorrow?" Zack sputtered for a few more moments before he put two and two together.

"I love you, you intelligent, marvelous woman. I'll see you tomorrow." Aeris made sure to make her goodbyes extra soppy just to annoy the red-head. She hung up her cell and turned back to the flowers.

Maybe she hadn't run out of clues after all.


	14. Dealing with the Demon

Hello all!

Yeaaaah... It's been a while, eh? Sorry bout that.

Well I can't exactly promise frequent updates due to college, and I think this chapter is not that great but... neh? hope you like it? hehehe.

I'm kinda depressed. In case you can't tell.

Thanks for the reviews! It's actually the only reason I can get enough inspiration to update, to be honest.

So please read and review!

Don't own don't sue.

* * *

"Ah, Director. Please, take a seat." Reeve stepped into Sephiroth's office, resisting the urge to look around and try to figure out just what made the world's number one hero tick. He couldn't afford to look like a simple fool, for as much as such a mindless survey might be able to tell him. He did as he was told and pulled up a chair across from what was arguably the most powerful man in existence, at least physically. Reeve ignored the nervousness that thought tried to instill and strengthened his resolve. "I'm sure you are wondering why I've asked you here," the General began, staring Reeve down in a way that he was sure was supposed to be intimidating. He refused to take the bait.

"Actually, I was rather glad when my secretary said you'd called." Reeve crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair as though he didn't care who was sitting just on the other side of that desk. "I had hopes of establishing a similar meeting myself, but I admit I know nothing of _your_ intentions. Tell me, just what can the Department of Urban Development do for SOLDIER?" He knew he was being awfully bold, but Sephiroth was, technically, in a position inferior to his. Surely that allowed him some room for posturing. Sephiroth looked at him strangely for a moment. He probably hadn't expected such a reply from such an unremarkable man. Reeve simply smiled back.

"Do you remember the odd occurrence with the vending machines the other day?" Sephiroth stood up as he spoke, wandering over to stare out the window in an attempt to downplay the importance of their subject. Reeve was too used to this kind of environment to fall for it.

"Hmm, I might." He mused, realizing where this was going. "I assume you would rather I forget it?" Sephiroth didn't seem to know what to make of him. Reeve bit the inside of his cheek and took the final plunge. "Keeping secrets from the Science department I presume? No wonder Hojo is so displeased." The silver-haired man whirled around to face him, confusion evident in his eyes, hand half-reaching for a sword that wasn't there. Luckily for Reeve the massive blade was resting against the wall somewhere closer to the door. His smile grew wider. "Relax, General. I'm sure we can arrange something." He wondered what kind of a picture he cut, all traces of his usual dopey look completely gone. Did he still seem foolish, sitting like he was in front of the famed Demon of Wutai? He hadn't been killed yet so he must have been doing something right.

"What are you hinting at, Director." Sephiroth growled, his eyes narrowing as he stalked back to the desk. Reeve played it cool and acted like he wasn't more frightened than he'd ever been in his life.

"Get Tseng in here, then we'll talk." Reeve met The General with equal venom, his smile cold and dangerous. He stared down unnatural, emerald eyes and willed himself not to look away. This had to work, or his whole life was useless anyway. His whole dream swept away by the actions of one, foolish, cruel scientist.

Sephiroth picked up his phone violently, grumbling things too lowly for those without the benefits of Mako to hear.

"Get me Tseng," he growled into the receiver, and Reeve thanked every god he knew. _Finally_, he was getting somewhere!

* * *

Zack woke up to find blue eyes staring him down. It was a sight far too familiar after this past week. He would fall asleep watching his cadet friend every night, and when he awoke those sightless eyes would be there to greet him—seeing him, but not really seeing anything at all. Cloud was looking at him like that now, his gaze vacant, mind wandering Gaea knew where. For one heart-stopping moment he'd almost thought that the blood pumping chase through the Shinra building had been only a passing dream, and that his friend was cursed to stay here in this apartment, trapped in his own mind and a child's body for the rest of eternity.

"Cloud?" He questioned, determined to banish the fear with words. Words were real. They gave him something to hold on to other than the wispy musings of his racing psyche. Words were his focus and his light in the black abyss of silence. They had kept him sane in the war and they would have to keep doing so now. "Are you here with me buddy?" It was as if his question had drawn Cloud back to the earth. Slowly he watched the light of consciousness seep back into mako-bright eyes until finally the cadet looked away.

"I don't know." The blond muttered solemnly, a strange expression on his face. Zack couldn't place the emotion, but it bothered him nonetheless. He fed his own smile a little more light, hoped that with cheer he might bring some back to Cloud.

"Well if you're talking to me, then I'd say you are." He was overwhelmed with the fear and the pain of the last week, watching his friend waste away like a vegetable. He might not have known the blond extremely well before all this, but Cloud was still his friend, still one of the people he cared for and would protect with his own life. Something in him was adamant in its worry and care for the boy—some unnamed piece of himself that he couldn't reach or comprehend. Zack didn't question it, for as strange as it was. Cloud needed him, and truth be told he needed Cloud.

The blond didn't say anything in return, just shrugged and continued staring at some point in the distance. He looked defeated, as though he had seen too many battles, outlived too many good men. The SOLDIER thought he'd seen the same posture and expression on Wutai war veterans, especially sole survivors and regular foot-soldiers. Zack couldn't help himself any longer. He leapt forward, hugging the blond with a fierceness he didn't quite understand. Something in him died a little when he felt Cloud flinch away from his touch. It was an action instinctive and ingrained. He wondered what had happened to make Cloud react that way—and if it had been happening even before all this mako-poisoning madness.

"Please don't." The request was filled with a strange kind of pain, and the overly-thin body in his arms shivered with unnamed grief. Filing the reaction away in his mind and refusing to act like anything was wrong, Zack pulled away with a smile on his face.

"It's so good to see you actually awake!" He spoke, trying to lighten the mood. Cloud took another few moments to get over his odd response before he was back to the cool, dead look he'd been wearing earlier. Zack resisted the urge to pick up his sword right now and hunt someone down, instead throwing himself into his goofy persona. "Well, awake and not running away from me, I suppose. How the hell did you get so fast anyway, Spike?" A flicker-flash of that same grief ran through Cloud's eyes before he clammed up again.

"Mako." He said the word as though it were a bittersweet curse, with all the familiarity, hatred and awe of a veteran SOLDIER 1st. It took the whole of Zack's focus not to frown.

"Well yeah, I guess. But I've got some too, had it for a lot longer than you, and you're faster than me!" Cloud just shrugged, his face impassive, but his hands clenched tight in the sheets. Zack saw all the signs of a man about to break. He tried to think of something safer to talk about

"Your bunk-mates were asking for you the other day." It seemed a simple-enough statement. He had hoped it would trigger some kind of fondness in his friend, make him remember that there was good in the world. Instead, Cloud looked at him as though he were crazy before he seemed to realize something, blue-eyes wide. "They wanted to know if you had shown any signs of getting better." Cloud didn't seem to be listening any more. This time, Zack really did frown. Perhaps the doctor had missed something when they checked Cloud over? Or maybe this was an effect of mako-hallucinations. He hadn't read about anything like this, but maybe—

"So then… I'm still in the SOLDIER program?" Cloud seemed to be posing the question more to himself than to Zack. The dark-haired warrior half-wondered if he was even supposed to have heard it at all.

"Well yeah. How long did you think you were asleep, anyway? Absences of less than a month are still within program parameters." Cloud turned to him and Zack could see the mind whirring behind those eyes. His friend seemed to be on the edge of something deep, something important. "You were only out for about a week. Seph hasn't taken you off the roster yet." Cloud's whole body seemed to spasm at the mention of the General's name, pain and resolve and a thousand other things Zack didn't want to think about ran rampant in his expression for that brief instant, but quick as he could blink they were gone.

"But I failed. I failed the test." Zack's frown grew deeper. He'd been watching Cloud train, secretly because he didn't want the little guy to get teased for favoritism like he'd been. He'd been able to handle it but he didn't know if the shy kid from Nibelheim would have brushed things off the same way. In any case, Cloud had easily topped many others in his year in terms of skill. The boy was a born fighter, strong from years of mountain living and willing to take direction. He didn't understand why on Gaea anyone would fail Cloud.

"Really? I hadn't read the exam results yet because of all this madness but…" Silence reigned for a few moments as they both tried to put their thoughts together. Zack wondered if the reason for some of Cloud's pain was because he'd failed. "You know, most people fail the first exam. We get most of our good SOLDIERs from the make-up test six months later." The blond covered his face with his hands and curled in on himself. He shook once, and Zack almost took it for a sob but then Cloud was back to his cold front, hands at his sides and face perfectly blank. Zack's eyes narrowed. There was no way this was _just_ from the hallucinations. These reactions and instant-masks were far too easily employed. Something had been going on for a long time to make his friend like this. Zack felt his blood boil at the thought.

"So then I haven't gone into the regular yet?" The regular was military talk for the unenhanced army of Shinra. They were comprised largely of cast-offs from the SOLDIER program and petty criminals with nowhere else to go. The thought of Cloud as one of them left a bad taste in his mouth.

"What? No! You aren't automatically signed up for them when you fail. You can go where you want from here, Cloud." Although, Zack supposed, whatever had happened to poison Cloud had apparently been rather traumatizing. What if Cloud didn't want anything more to do with Shinra? What if he left? Zack steeled himself against the unreasonable sense of abandonment that thought effected and made himself accept it. Perhaps it would be better for the kid to get out of here—away from what had hurt him. If that were for the best then… so be it.

"Go where I want from here?" Cloud echoed the thought like it was something profound, a kind of disbelief and wonder shining through his cool mask. To anyone else it might have been imperceptible, but Zack was used to reading Sephiroth so Cloud's looks were easy to decipher. The teen laughed once, bitter and full of perverse pain, before he shook his head. "No, what I want has never been a part of it." The words were mumbled and distant. Zack wouldn't have heard them if he weren't a SOLDIER, but as it was... He was just about to ask what his friend meant when his phone cut him off. The cheery ring seemed somehow inappropriate in the stagnant silence. Cloud stared at the device with an expression that seemed torn between remembered amusement and bittersweet sorrow.

"Zack here." He answered, feeling too drained to bother with some other, more characteristic greeting.

"Zackary, it is possible that there may be more complications surrounding Strife than I had realized." Seph's tone sounded strained and worrisome over the phone, and Zack probably would have given more thought to it if Cloud's reaction to the man's voice hadn't been taking up so much of his thoughts. The blond had frozen in place, every muscle in his body clenched and ready to spring. Emotions Zack didn't want to believe his friend capable of flickered rapidly in his eyes. Pain, regret, exhaustion, need, guilt—all of these and more ran high-speed over Cloud's visage and Zack had no idea what could make a man look quite like that. Cloud looked positively _tortured_ with every word Sephiroth said.

"—listening to me?" Oh shit! Sephiroth was talking. Zack remembered to breathe again, logged Cloud's reaction away for later, and tried to focus on his commanding officer.

"I am now. What did you say?" The General sighed at him in exasperation and Zack knew he really must be tired to be letting his perfect mask crack like that.

"My office. Now, please." Now that he was paying attention, he could hear what sounded like arguing in the background, and Zack felt his worry escalate. Seph said that something about _Cloud_ was a problem? Gaea. The kid had already gone through so much… He felt his protective instincts rising again. If Shinra did one more thing to hurt the blond, he swore he was taking his sword and going on a killing spree, SOLDIER and honor be damned.

"Got it. Be there in ten." He didn't bother to wait for a reply before closing his phone and turning to the cadet in question. Cloud still looked haunted and seemed to be trapped in his own mind once more. Zack laid a cautious hand on a barely-trembling shoulder, hoping to bring the kid out of it for once and for all. Instead, he found himself dodging an extremely fast right hook. "Holy Shit!" He cursed as the punch grazed his left cheek, stinging like hell even though it hadn't even really made contact. Gaea. What had they _done_ to make Cloud this strong so quickly?

"Sorry." The cadet managed to choke out after a few minutes. He sat there shivering; eyes clenched shut and hands twisted awkwardly in the sheets as he tried to regain some kind of control. Zack didn't want to leave him alone when he was like this, but he had the feeling that there wasn't much choice. This meeting had to be important for Seph to call him personally, and if it was about Cloud…

"Listen I gotta go for a bit. You gonna be ok without me?" He reached out to try and comfort the blond, but Cloud flinched away from his touch. His heart _ached_ to see his friend like this, and he didn't know what to do. "I—I can just tell Seph it'll have to wait." He mumbled as he picked up his phone again. He wasn't going to leave Cloud in this state, important meeting be damned. The kid would run again, wasn't in his right mind. He was just about to dial Seph's number when a steady, pale hand reached out for his own. Dead eyes met him when he looked up, and Zack had to fight not to shiver.

"Go," Cloud murmured, a completely different person from the boy who had been shaking in front of him just a few seconds ago. "I'll be fine." Those eyes gave him no clues as to what his friend was thinking. Zack frowned, but stood to leave nonetheless. He'd call in a favor from Tseng and have one of the Turks watch, but Cloud didn't have to know about that. Maybe the kid needed a bit of alone time.

Still, it didn't feel right, walking out of his apartment and leaving the blond behind.

* * *

Sephiroth fought the urge to rub his temples and stave off the coming migraine as he took in the scene around him. Tseng and a few of his men stood imposingly near the door to the office. The Director of Urban Development was seated across from him at the desk, wearing an expression the General would never have thought him capable of before today. But then, a lot of unexpected things had been occurring lately.

"So in short," Sephiroth began, his voice starkly resonant in the silence of the room. "Acting in the interest of my men has given Hojo motive to attempt a coup." Tseng and Reeve both nodded, though they didn't need to. The General understood the situation well enough. He should have seen it sooner, to be honest, but he'd been so desperate for rebellion, so blinded by his own need for independence and control that he'd ignored all the consequences. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

"Hey, can you make this quick? I don't really don't like the thought of leaving Cl—oh hey, wow Seph. You having a party in here?" Sephiroth's migraine threatened to increase tenfold as his subordinate bounded into the room without knocking once again.

"Seph?" Tseng repeated the nickname with a raised brow. Sephiroth ignored it. Maybe if he didn't react, the Turks wouldn't decide to use that moniker in all their official paperwork. They had a rather vicious sense of humor at times.

"Just come in and sit down, Lieutenant." He growled, eyeing the open door. His office was, perhaps out of fear, one of the few rooms in this entire building _not_ bugged by the Turks and Hojo and the President and god knew who else. The hallway, however, was a completely different matter. He wasn't entirely sure that meeting here was a good idea, but alternative ones were not within his reach at the moment. Zack shrugged, slammed the door behind himself in his usual fashion, and loped into the room as if he hadn't a care in the world. The tension Sephiroth could see in his shoulders, however, belied his worry.

"The director here was just telling us about a conversation he overheard." The SOLDIER first grunted in reply, let himself fall bonelessly into Sephiroth's favorite chair. If he hadn't known the man for years he would never have been able to see the fierce protective glint in his eye, or the subtle way he had poised himself. Zack was ready to spring, "slouching" posture or no. He was on a hairpin trigger, despite the fact that he was usually one of the most easy going people Sephiroth knew. Perhaps it had been a mistake to call him here if he was to be so irrational when it came to Strife.

"Right. Hojo's going to call for Scarlet to absorb Lazard's position at the next executive meeting." Zack frowned at the words, not understanding their implication. Sephiroth knew his second in command was intelligent, but he wasn't quite used to the way politics worked in this office yet.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why dissolve the department? And why would Hojo want to give Scarlet more power?" Sephiroth used this time to start organizing some of the forms still scattered across his desk. He'd already heard this explanation once anyway.

"Because right now, Sephiroth is acting head of the department. Which means Sephiroth basically has the same amount of power Hojo does. He's untouchable. Hojo doesn't like that." Sephiroth gritted his teeth against the simple explanation and tried to ignore it. He hated this. Hated that his men were in jeopardy solely because he'd tried to keep them safe. "Trying to promote a new person to the head of the department would be risky for Hojo. Someone he doesn't know could be just as hard to control as if he'd left Sephiroth in charge. Scarlet, on the other hand, is someone he knows how to deal with, and a person who won't have any problems with his less than ethical experiments."

"Why not just take the department for himself?" Gaea, what a nightmare _that_ would be. The thought of Hojo in _direct_ control of his precious SOLDIERS was… Sephiroth shuddered minutely and hoped that no one noticed. They didn't.

"He can't. He doesn't have the time. If he had to deal with all the mess that SOLDIER entails, he'd never have room for his experiments. And putting a subordinate in charge like Heidegger does with the Turks is just as risky as allowing Scarlet to take control. At least this way Hojo gets access to some of Scarlet's technology and her support in the board room." Zack looked as though he was beginning to realize just what this meant. His hands were clenched into shaking fists on his lap, even if his face showed nothing.

"So what are we going to do about it." And there, Zack had hit the problem. Sephiroth had been sitting here for the last ten minutes wondering the exact same thing. The Director took them all completely by surprise, his grin sadistic and looking severely out of place on a man they were so used to ignoring.

"That, gentlemen, is exactly why I've been trying to get a hold of you these past couple days." And the Head of Urban Development proceeded to show them just how wrong they'd been to write him off before.


	15. Babysitter Blackout

BAHAHAHAHA. YES! FINALLY FINISHED THIS GODDAMN CHAPTER! W00t. Oh my god this took FOREVER. I've been writing it almost since before I posted the last chapter. And I'd like to brain myself. I got about half of it written in the last twenty four hours, so WHY WAS THE FIRST HALF SO HARD?

Anyway I have three exams today, so I hope you all enjoy this. My grades might not.

* * *

Cloud sat for a long time after the dream of his best friend left him, silent and still as stone. But on the inside he felt he must be shaking apart. His thoughts were everywhere all at once, racing a mile a minute through his head and driving him to insanity. Where was he, _when_ was he, who was he? Was any of this real? What did "real" even mean to begin with? He had probably never been the best judge; he'd been Puppet and Hero and Leader before, had believed them all equally. Every one of those delusions had seemed as real as the next. And this one seemed _less_ possible—the dead still breathed, the mad spoke sanely… how could it possibly be real? Or perhaps this was truth and his life before had been a dream—perhaps his twisted past (or was it future?) and Jenova and Meteor and all that death had been nothing more than burning Mako twisting into the cells of his mind and tossing him into mad dreams.

Still… for this to be _real_… He wanted it to be, he didn't want it to be. He'd been running from his own mistakes so long that he'd killed himself just to escape them. How much strength would it take to keep standing, to go on living after he'd already given up on everything? He felt like crying and laughing all at once. If this were not a dream, not death, if he the life he'd lived were not a mad fantasy, then what did that _mean? _Real? Real. Not death and not a dream? His mind was reeling with the implications of it.

When Zack had promised that this was reality after his mad flight through the halls of Shinra, Cloud felt that he had to believe it. Zack—_blood, rain, ashen dirt and so much pain. It should have been him. Not Zack, never—_had been here in this very room, sleeping beside him, as real as anything he'd ever seen. No green lights, no blurred lines. Just a shaggy mess of dark hair and a boyish face. He wanted that. Needed it to be true. How long had he dragged himself through the dirt, mourning that man? –_and the blood was burning against his cheek and the sword was ever heavy in his hand, but he could not stop. He would be Zack's legacy. He would be Zack's everything because—_and now, faced with the thought, the mere idea that Zack was ok, that he might never have even died at all… It would take a stronger man than he not to grab on to that kind of hope with both hands. Here he was, standing at the beginning of everything, every horrible event and mistake he'd ever mourned, he could—could help them. Could _save_ them.

Except that he couldn't. There was nothing left of him now; he'd been wasting away for years, waiting for death and hoping for some kind of forgiveness. But he'd never found either, and the blood on his hands had only increased. Was he really so arrogant as to believe he could help _anyone_ after that? Deep Ground, Geo-stigma, Meteor, Nibelheim burning… He'd had a hand in all of them, had caused everyone around him pain. If it hadn't been for him… Zack and Aeris would probably still be alive. And Se—Sephiroth—_Silver hair, green eyes, the tiniest hair's-breadth of a smile. It had to be wrong. How could anyone that beautiful be a monster?_

Shit. He didn't want to think about it anymore, but thoughts of the man wouldn't leave him. Hearing his voice earlier had been pure torture. Even if it was distorted by the phone and muffled by Zack's cheek, his mako-enhanced senses picked up the sounds and relentlessly pounded his skull with memory. All the emotions he'd wanted to deny, all the feelings which had ultimately led to his downfall were suddenly rushing back again and it was all he could do to keep breathing. Sephiroth was the beginning and the end of everything. Sephiroth was an ideal and a dream and a horrible mistake and it seemed like even when he killed his heart he simply couldn't leave that angel behind. He was lost opportunity, guilt, sorrow, perfection… Back before Jenova had destroyed his life he'd loved Sephiroth, powerfully and senselessly and in a way he knew wasn't _right_ for someone who could only watch from afar. After he'd been through Hojo and lost himself to the mess of insanity, Sephiroth became even more of an anchor for him—the only thing tying Cloud to his identity. He couldn't think of Sephiroth without feeling all those things; the gratefulness and the need and the unbearable remorse. To hear his voice again, clear of Jenova's clouding influence was just… He felt that his heart would burst. It was too much. And to sit here and mull over something like _reality_ after that—to know what happened next and to know he had the power to _change_ it…

The thought terrified him more than anything else he'd ever had to face. He wasn't conceited enough to think he could play god with the lives of those around him and fix everything. He knew he couldn't save anyone with so many mistakes already weighing him down, and Sephiroth had been one of the biggest mistakes of all. How could he possibly have missed the pain in those green eyes? How could he have fallen for the General's trick like all the rest, placed him on too high a pedestal to see that he was a man who wanted and craved and hurt just like any other? He'd been such an idiot then, so convinced that he knew what love was and so determined to hide it that he'd missed what was really important. And instead of helping, instead of realizing what had happened or even _asking, _he'd picked up the closest sharp object and lashed out like a complete child.

He'd killed Sephiroth that day in the reactor. The true Sephiroth, the one that only craved love and an end to loneliness. He might have saved the man, but he hadn't even tried. He hadn't even… Gaea, how could he pretend to be any kind of hero after a failure like _that_? He couldn't plan anything, couldn't change anything. He'd only screw it up in the end. What if the things he did only hurt those he loved even more? Or worse still, what if he did everything he could to save them and nothing happened at all, what if this was merely a second chance to watch his failures pass him by in a cruel shadow-puppetry of life. What if—

_"Something could happen that could never unhappen, and you're terrified of that."_ Tifa's words echoed back to him from the recesses of memory, chiding him even after their utterance had long passed. It irked him, but she was right. She was usually right when it came to him; she'd loved him enough to understand him. He couldn't do anything because if he messed up somewhere along the line, it would be more than he could handle. At least if he didn't try, he could say it wasn't his fault when the ones he loved got hurt. When Cloud closed his eyes, he saw the blood of all those he'd ever loved dripping from his trembling fingers. He couldn't face himself knowing that, didn't trust himself to act. And yet, he couldn't sit back and do nothing. He didn't think he'd be able to stand still and watch everything happen again, even knowing his actions could only make it worse.

If he were completely honest with himself, he already knew the best possible way he could help the world. If it hadn't been for him… if he hadn't been there Zack would have been able to run fast enough to get away. Aeris would have kept away from the Ancient Forest and from the remnant of Sephiroth that killed her. And Sephiroth… Zack had been his friend. It had always made him a little mad with jealousy before, but Zack and the General were openly close once. If anyone could have talked Sephiroth out of his madness that day it was him. Jenova would have been defeated before any of that mess ever even began.

_He_ was the main factor in all of it; so really, the best way to keep the world from ending was to end himself.

Odd. The thought was strangely unappealing. Cloud couldn't help it; he laughed, mirthless and aching. Even despite all that, after searching for death and trying to kill himself, even if he still hated himself more than anything, he could feel the will to live stirring in his chest. The idea that everyone was still alive had given him something to selfishly want again. He wanted to be here, to see his friends happy and whole and to live with them as he should always have been able to do. Sephiroth's voice echoed haunting through his mind, a little strained, a little worried, but most importantly it was _sane_. And if that were true—if that were true then he—_maybe—_

Cloud pressed a flat palm to his dully, sweetly aching chest and realized that this was what hope was like. It was not something he was used to feeling; he had abandoned it so many identities ago, deep within the Shinra mansion under the tender care of cruel madmen. Hope meant nothing—it was all light and love and fairytale and something he'd never been meant to have and _yet_, it pressed stupidly onward, singing through his very blood with every heartbeat. He wanted to trust it so badly. Wanted to fall into the warmth that believing entailed, but he could not fool himself. He'd lived enough fragmented lives to know that nothing he tried, no path he took to forgiveness would ever be enough. The ones he loved always died, dreams always faded, and his torments would ever return to haunt him until the end of days. There would be no hoping then to help him.

He couldn't help the bitter smirk that flashed quickly over his frozen visage. His thoughts sounded pathetic even by his skewed standards and yet he could not stop thinking in the same circles over and over again. He was confused and grieving and hoping and so sick of himself that he just wanted to crawl out of his own skin and fly as far away as he possibly could. But he'd already been running for what felt like forever, and _that_ had turned out so wonderfully. Here he was, stuck at the starting line once again. Obviously he'd been running for so long that he'd come full circle.

That image pulled another hysterical chuckle from his throbbing chest and he knew he must be losing it if he could keep laughing at a time like this. He felt torn between braining himself and waiting to see what might happen next. He was on the edge of something high, something heavy and he didn't think he wanted to jump just yet; all promises aside, he had to get _out_ of here. He needed solace, needed comfort and quiet and some piece of his fragile sanity back before he could figure out where to go from here. He wasn't going to figure anything out stuck alone in this gods-be-damned building with all his ghosts and mistakes staring him straight in the face. He wanted to be selfish. He wanted to rest. He wanted—_White flowers and petals on water and sunshine where there once was none. If you stare long enough into the shimmering light, can you see her face? _He wanted the church.

He felt the command to _go_ course through him like a jolt of electricity as soon as he realized what he wanted—needed. The church was his sanctuary, in part because it had been hers. And maybe it was just another piece of his mistake-ridden history, maybe it should only have reminded him of all that he'd done wrong, but somehow he couldn't think of it that way. In a way that nothing else had ever been, the church was _home_.

Cloud tore the sheets off with a kind of desperateness he'd never admit to, shaking and sweating from the pain but determined all the same. His earlier adrenaline was completely gone, but he had enough will to keep moving. The harder he pushed himself, the easier it would be to fall into thoughtless oblivion in the end. He stumbled toward the bedroom door gracelessly, only barely conscious of his own two feet. He had to fix it, had to stop it, had to—_Gaea_ he just wanted to _not think! _He threw the door open with a sudden burst of strength, heedless of any kind of ache because he just needed to get to _her_—to green and flowers and quiet and—

"Cadet Strife, I don't think you want to go anywhere just yet." Cloud took one step out of the doorway and was met immediately with a face-full of Turk. He shook, tried to lean on the doorframe just to stay upright. He was cursing the suit in front of him with every damning word he'd ever known. This was the _last_ thing he needed.

"Babysitting, Rude?" He choked out, his words sounding more like a weak plea then the jibe it was intended to be. Something in the back of his mind told him he shouldn't know the name or the face just yet, and the raised eyebrow just visible above pitch-black sunglasses only confirmed the thought. He couldn't bring himself to care much. He wasn't sure when he'd met the man, only that he _knew_ him, and that was enough. If that was too confusing for Rude, well… Cloud had far more important things to worry about.

The quietest of the Turks didn't respond, unsurprisingly. He merely gave Cloud a patented Look, as though he expected the half-maddened, mako-ridden cadet to be scorned into submission. Cloud granted him an annoyed scoff and tried to walk around this human obstacle. He had to keep moving or he was going to collapse, and he swore to Gaea and Minerva and every god who would listen that if he spent _one_ more second in this room, he would blow it to pieces. Rude moved to block him again. Cloud _seethed_.

"Move, or I will make you." It was a stupid thing to say given the weakness and the agony thrumming through every inch of his body. Doubtless, Rude was equally aware of that if his expression were anything to go by. At the moment, and for the past few days, Cloud's muscles were breaking down and being rebuilt even as he breathed, over and over again until the Mako was all settled in—until he was a perfectly usable tool for the hand that wielded him. But whose would it be? The planet? Shinra? Sephi—_A puppet, I am only ever his puppet, his toy to do as he pleases. Wasn't it that way from the start? He thinks to himself as he watches the black materia glitter in the strange, silver light. Ending the world never looked so pretty._

Shit. He was falling back into the Thoughts again. No, no, he had to get _OUT_! "Move." He growled, and for all his pathetic trembling, the sound was one to be feared. It was all the fury of a caged animal and a swirling tempest in one. But Rude did not move. He simply sighed.

"Haven't you done enough running yet, Cadet Strife?" Cloud jerked as if he'd been hit.

"Shut up!" He shouted childishly back, maybe because some part of him agreed. He didn't want to hear it. "You don't know what you're talking about, Rude." The door-frame was cracking under his grip. Behind dark shades, the Turk eyed his trembling hands with trepidation.

"Enlighten me," Rude goaded. He sounded as confident as ever, but Cloud could smell the beginnings of worry, hear the accelerating heartbeat. Mako was truly a godlike power at times. He wondered what he looked like from the Turk's point of view, swiftly going mad, shaking and sweating with exhaustion and ungodly strong all the same. Did he look more like a monster, or a petulant child?

"I can't," he sounded pathetic even to himself, and that only made him more angry, more ready to do something stupid. "I…" Everything he wanted to forget was flashing by in a haze of disjointed images and snatches of words. They were mere echoes he could hardly understand, but he remembered the pain of them all the same. How could he possibly explain any of it to anyone when he wasn't sure what had happened at all?

"Cadet, your friend will be back soon. Please, just go back to bed for now." It was more than he'd ever heard Rude say in a single breath, but Cloud didn't have the humor left to be impressed. He was too busy trying to put the memories away, to keep himself and Zack and Cadet Strife and Puppet from blurring together. It wasn't working. His thoughts were flying by before he could think them, reality phasing in and out. He wanted to be a hero he wanted to save the world he wanted to watch it burn.

"Rude, you have _got _to move. Now." He was swiftly tumbling into insanity and if he couldn't escape _right. now. _he didn't know what would happen. Rude just frowned and shook his head. Cloud choked as he tried to swallow, tried to use the pain to bring him back to reality. He stood and bore his degrading mental state for a few seconds until he could breathe again, fought his fragmenting mind down to a deafening roar and blinked until he could only see one set of images instead of three. He might even have been able to lock the madness away entirely if Rude hadn't tried to move him.

"Come on Cadet, back to bed." He coaxed. He might have seen the way Cloud's whole body was fighting not to break down, or the sweat coating the blond's brow from the simple effort of remaining upright and assumed the threat was over. He would have been very wrong. The moment he touched Cloud's shaking shoulder was the last thing he remembered before it all went black.

* * *

Zack eyed the General across the room warily from his position in Sephiroth's favorite chair. To any other observer it would seem that nothing was out of order. But Zack had been close to Sephiroth long enough to know what was a mask and what was not. And right now the General was trying his damndest to seem normal. He was blaming himself over and over again for Hojo's latest move. Zack might have been a little stupid when it came to politics but guilt was something he could understand. And for all his godliness, guilt was something Sephiroth was prone to in spades.

"I still think you did the right thing, Seph." He watched broad shoulders shake, ever so slightly, before Sephiroth went back to his paperwork. He didn't know why his friend felt the need to keep up the act; Reeve and Tseng and all their plotting had been over hours ago. Still, even now Sephiroth couldn't relax. Zack hated it. He wished his friends would stop being such emotional nutcases and just _talk_ to him without a full-scale investigation.

"Don't you have that cadet to take care of, Lieutenant?" Sephiroth's voice was strained. Maybe to anyone else he would have sounded annoyed, but Zack caught that minute hitch for what it was.

"Spikey'll be ok for a bit. I've got a Turk babysitting for me." He gave Sephiroth his best Cheshire grin. It was wasted. The General never looked up. "Seriously, Seph it's not him I'm worried about right this second." _That_ had unnatural green eyes flying up to meet his own. He stared back without fear, letting Sephiroth determine his honest intentions. _I want to help you,_ he wanted to say, but he knew the independent, emotionally stunted man wouldn't take it well. _I want my friends to be happy. I don't want to lose anyone else. _Sephiroth looked away all too soon, his face shutting back down into his porcelain mask and Zack was reminded of Cloud. Those two were far too alike for their own good. He should probably avoid letting them meet—they'd might gang up on him with their emotional brick walls and force him to be a functioning member of society or something.

"No need to worry on my account Zackary. There is nothing wrong." Zack resisted the urge to scoff (barely) and looked out the window instead.

"Say Seph, how's about you and me get out of here a bit? Hit the town?" The only acknowledgement he got was a slight pause in the shuffle of Sephiroth's paperwork. He still took it as an ok to keep talking. "I know this one girl in sector six—"

"We have been over this already. We're not going to pretend to be drunk and pick up chicks, Zack." Ooh! Shortened first name! Man, he was really making progress! Zack grinned like a crazed man.

"Aww…. Sephiroth I wasn't even talking about a girl like _that_. Get your mind out of the gutter, man!" The poor General looked genuinely confused for a few seconds before he sighed and covered his face with his palm.

"Zack…" He drawled, and the dark-haired soldier swore he saw one silver eyebrow twitch. Good. Annoyed was a marked improvement on depressed.

"Yes?" He drew the word out obnoxiously and took a more preposterous position in the comfy chair. Yup. Definitely an eyebrow twitch going now.

"I've been trying to come up with the best way to kill someone with a single piece of paper. Would you like to be my test subject?" Zack had to blink a few times before the strange words registered. But as soon as they had he was laughing until he cried, sides aching with mirth. For his part, Sephiroth looked slightly shocked and a little embarrassed.

"Dude, was that your idea of a joke?" The general said nothing and turned back to his work, but Zack could just barely make out the hint of red on moon-white cheeks. A definite yes. "That's the best thing I've heard all day. You need to do that more often." Sephiroth grumbled something unintelligible, even to Zack's mako-hearing. It was probably another death threat. How odd, Sephiroth was usually never this talkative.

"Seriously though, you have _got_ to get out of this office some time, Seph. What if we just went out for Wutaian or something?" The General looked over and frowned, but Zack could see that the heavy burden of his guilt had lightened at least a little. His eyes didn't seem quite so dead.

"Zack, I have work to do. For now at least, I am acting head of—" They were interrupted by Zack's ever-inappropriate cell phone.

"Again?" Zack groaned, even as he reached for the damn thing. He glared at it with enough force to send a man to his knees. He'd just been about to coax Seph into Wutaian food! Now the General would go back to his work and he'd _never_ be able to get him to go… "Hello?" He grumbled to whoever was on the other line. Feminine giggles met his ill-tempered greeting and suddenly Zack wasn't so upset. "Aeris!" On the other side of the office he watched Seph roll his eyes. "Hey I saw that!" He teased. The General went back to pretending he didn't exist. "What's up babycakes?"

"Zack you have a friend with blond hair, right?" What an odd question. His eyes narrowed, suspicion beginning to roil in the pit of his stomach. Something about her voice sounded off.

"I have a few of those, dear, you'll have to be more specific."

"Oh, this one's different from the rest. His hair vaguely resembles a chocobo. I think we may have been about to talk about him once when our date came up." Zack's eyes went wide. She was being cryptic, but he realized now that she was talking about Cloud.

"Oh, that one. Yeah, what about him?" Her breath was shaky in the phone receiver. "Aeris, are you ok?"

"I… your friend came to visit me today." …wait, what? Cloud was supposed to be tucked safely away in his room, guarded by the best babysitter/protection detail Shinra had. How on _Gaea_… maybe she just meant meta-physically or something?

"He…did? That's odd. He usually doesn't get out a whole lot." _He's not supposed to leave_. Is what he was trying to say, but you never knew who was listening to your phone conversations around this place.

"I gathered as much." Aeris's laugh was choked, and Zack just wished he could be there to make it all better. Why did it seem like everyone he loved was swiftly falling apart at the seams? "Why don't you come pick him up? He's a little too indisposed to walk back on his own." Well shit. Was she being serious? Cloud had really found his way to her place? What the _hell._

"Where are you?"

"Where am I always?" The church. Really? How the crap did Cloud get all the way to sector 6? The thought of him riding the train, slipping in and out of consciousness was more than a little ridiculous (and worrisome.)

"Right. I'm on my way." He started to close the phone but something stopped him. "Aeris?" No answer. She must have hung up already. Frowning, Zack inched toward the off button when—

"Yes dear." The phone was back to its place against his ear before he could blink.

"You know I love you, right?" He wished he could see her right now. He was certain her smile would be so beautiful that it hurt.

"Thanks Zack. I needed to hear that." He thought he could feel her warmth through the phone if he tried hard enough. "We'll see you soon?" _Hurry, please_. He could hear her real meaning. It set him to worrying.

"Hey! Where's my 'I love you too'?" His voice didn't match his facial expression. Zack sounded jovial but in reality his thoughts were frantically worried and racing a mile a minute. He'd been reduced to _pacing_. He never paced! Sephiroth was staring at him in askance from across the room.

"Maybe I'll give you one when you get here." Aeris's laugh was cut off when she hung up. Zack followed her example.

"Crap." He grumbled, his mind reeling from this new information. He had _no_ idea how this happened, or why the supposed babysitters hadn't called him yet, or how Cloud had managed to get past the freaking _Turks_. They were elite bodyguards! Cloud was just a cadet!

"…I'm almost afraid to ask." Zack turned to the sound of his commanding officer's voice and stared him down. Those unusual eyes weren't quite so full of pain, but he could still see the tension flooding every chord of Sephiroth's body. What to do, what to do…. Sephiroth needed out of here even if he didn't admit it, and Cloud needed back in and Gaea knew what Aeris needed. Shit shit shit. This was too much to deal with right now. "Zack, you are beginning to frighten me. You have been silent for a whole…. Two minutes." He couldn't help it. In spite of everything, laughed.

"That's the second joke of the day, Seph! Better watch out or you might grow a sense of humor."

"You are evading the subject." Bless Sephiroth's emotionally stunted little heart, he was worried! Actually worried for _Zack_. The dark-haired hero didn't dare tease him for fear it might never happen again. He was strangely touched.

"So anyway about that girl in sector six. I think we should give her a visit!" It'd be good for Sephiroth to come along. It'd give him the chance to cheer up a little, and he'd be helping Cloud at the same time.

"Zackary, what…?"

"We should _really_ go." He was grabbing his sword from against the wall and slinging it into its place on his back. With a flourish, he tossed the General the Masamune. Not really the sort of thing one usually tossed, but it was a testament to the super-human qualities of both that neither wound up sliced to ribbons in the process. "Now." The jovial tone was gone from his voice. Sephiroth seemed to think about it a moment more before he finally sighed, pushing his paperwork to one side and standing in one fluid motion.

"If I wind up stuck in a Wutaiese restaurant because of this, so help me I will _end_ you." Zack grinned and slapped the butcher of Wutai on the back. As they made their way to the elevators.

"Don't worry, buddy. We'll go for burgers instead."


End file.
